Light layers in HDRP

I'm playing with lighting in an HDRP project. I want to use a bunch of spot lights to generate baked lightmaps for a group of static meshes, and a direct light for certain animated objects in realtime mode. I could do this by grouping the objects in layers and limiting the lights' culling masks to respective layers. In pre-SRP world the lights had cullingMask to make them illuminate only the objects in a particular layer. How can the same be achieved in an HDRP project, because the lights in such projects don't have the old layer selection drop down.

I found in HDRP project in the Light properties I could check "Show Additional Settings" under Features. This gives a "Light Layer" drop down field. But it's disabled to some default value as shown in the screenshot. How can I use it to illuminate objects in a specific layer?



(Using Unity v2018.3.2f1)

 

You have to enable it on the HD render Pipeline Settings as well

 

Awesome. That did it. Also liked the fact that Light Layers are now separate from regular layers.

 

i try do it but i got this what i miss

 

As feedback for Unity's UI team I recommend greyed out items have an appropriate on hover message to explain why it is so.

 

I also would VERY MUCH like to see comments for greyed-out items.

 

So I've enabled Light Layers in my HDRP settings, but where is the Culling mask drop down now in my actual light? Still don't see it...Unity 2019.2.1f1

 

You have to enable More Options for the light under the General tab. (The little gear icon to the right)

 

Yes thanks. Well hidden!

 

Wow, thanks a bunch I would have never guessed!!

 

I'm not getting the angulr diameter parameter i directional lights(Unity 2019.3.0a12 , hdrp 7.0.1)

 

You might have the wrong one expanded, check and see if you have two General tabs. This is probably a mistake made so it will probably go back to being under one tab or completely renamed.

 

Necrobumping this post a bit, but I don't think this feature works anymore on the latest HDRP version.

 

I'm, unfortunately, not that oblivious to forget about such a trivial thing.

I ensured to its fullest that everything is configured correctly as described in the package manager manual, but lights simply continue to affect all the objects no matter the settings (unless their mask is set to nothing, in which case they're fully culled from the lighting pipeline).

The mask render targer is properly generated and the mask value gets properly written to it, but the lights themselves don't react to it in any way. Tested on HDRP 7.1.8, both Unity 2019.3.6 and 2020.1.21a exhibit such an issue. Using an earlier 7.X.X HDRP version, reimporting shaders and wiping the library folder don't help.

 

i also thought there was something wrong with it , appears that if you go down a bit you will find another Light Layers check box . these greyed out ones are in the Default Frame settings so you have to check boxes below to activate them here

 

In my case, the checkbox in HDRP settings is greyed out and active, but the light layer dropdown is still greyed out on each light.

 

You have to enable Light Layers on the HD Render Pipeline asset, then you can also enable it in the global frame settings (Edit => Project Settings => HDRP Default Settings => Rendering) after that you should be able to enable the setting on lights, meshes, and also use it for shadows and light probes.

 

And dont miss:

 

and what about LightLayers and Instanced rendering? There seems to be some serious issues.

 

Why is everything all over the place in Unity! Why would you put the light layers in Quality > HDRP. Why would you design the software LIKE this!!! Why not keep it where the other layer options are in Unity OR put it in the light options? Seriously you can see why people give up learning Unity as nothing is united in the software!

 

Do lighlayers also work when baking lightmaps?
For me it looks like they don´t.

 

Does light layers properly work with directional light? I’m seeing that it’s still affecting unrelated objects. On 2021 LTS.

 

Anybody know if light layers will ever work for ui raw images with lit materials? Right now they are affected by the default but i see no way to turn that off and turn on a different layer for them.