Have nested layer inherit the layer properties of parent layer

[srookZD8Y9]

We make heavy use of nested layers to keep our scenes organized between multiple artists. I've noticed that nested layers do not respect the layer property settings of its parent layer. For example, setting a parent layer to "Not Visible to Camera" will not filter down to the nested layers and and they will still render normally. Is there a way to make those settings propagate to all the nested layers?

[MartinBeh]

While normal scene objects can be set to "By Layer" mode in order to inherit the display settings of the layer they are on, I don't think Layers have the same ability, i.e. they cannot inherit settings from the layer they are nested into.

So I believe your objects will only accept their immediate parent layer as source for their "by layer" settings.

Short answer: No, I do not think there is a way to get this "out of the box". There are probably many ways to do this through custom scripts or tools like render pass managers, AOVs with expressions etc.

PS: If you are using Arnold, maybe its "Operator Graphs" might come handy? This https://veda3d.com/override-material-for-arnold/ might give you a start?

[srookZD8Y9]

Thanks for the info Martin. Looks like my next project will be to start looking into scripting. We are using VRay and Pulze.io's Scene Manger plugin as our render pass manager. For the most part everything works well. However, when dealing with a lot of layers for different setups, it gets tedious fast.