I would like to be able to link lights to a single master control. Say I have 4 down lights in a room, I wish to set one as the master light and when I adjust its intensity, the other 3 lights adjust to the same intensity automatically. I'm coming over from Poser, and this is a basic function in that software. For a room with lots of downlights (like halls) this makes adjusting lighting much easier and faster. I do have a workaround of sorts for Blender, just would like to know if there's a way to actually gain control of light intensity for groups of lights.
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4$\begingroup$ look into drivers: docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/animation/drivers/…. You can drive other lamp's parameters with single "master" lamp or for example drive intensity of all lamps with location of some Empty object as control. When you create one driver you can copy paste it to all other lamps. $\endgroup$– Jaroslav Jerryno NovotnyCommented Nov 12, 2017 at 1:38
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$\begingroup$ That looks like a similar approach to the one Poser uses, so probably the best option for linking lights to a master parameter. Cheers! $\endgroup$– Piers17Commented Nov 12, 2017 at 3:33
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1$\begingroup$ Look into instancing first, it is much faster than drivers. (Alt-D your light as often as you want. Any change to any of the lights will be transferred to the other instances) $\endgroup$– yannCommented Nov 12, 2017 at 4:21
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OK, so my options now are: 1) place the lights on a separate layer and set their intensities then use the filmic response options to determine 'exposure'. As long as the lights are accurately calibrated to all lights in the scene, this will work. 2) master parameter drivers as Jerryno indicated above. Probably the most technically correct option. 3) Set a master light first, apply any textures, then use alt D to make copies. These take their data from the original light. I just tested it and it works just fine. Make sure to name the light before making copies if using multiple lighting sets.