Parametric Studio Rigs & Presets

Scene Light Manager (SLM) features pre-calibrated, interactive studio lighting rigs. Spawning a rig automatically builds collection hierarchies, empty control handles, tracking targets, and constraints to let you manipulate professional setups instantly.

1. Spawning a Lighting Rig

Under the LIGHTS tab of the SLM sidebar, click the Presets dropdown. Selecting any rig preset automatically triggers the following pipeline:

  • Generates a dedicated collection named after the rig category.
  • Spawns a tracking Target empty at the 3D Cursor.
  • Applies Track To constraints to the spawned lights, forcing them to look at the target.
  • Spawns empty controller handles for global offsets, rotation, and distance parameters.

2. Built-in Rig Presets

3-Point Light Rig
3-Point Light Rig (Classic Setup)

The gold standard for portraiture and product rendering. Spawns a Key light (primary exposure), a soft Fill light (shadow balance), and a Rim/Back light (separates subject silhouettes from dark backgrounds).

Studio Duo
Studio Duo

A clean, mirror-like dual-light configuration flanking both sides of the subject. Highly suited for minimalist layouts, vehicles, and clean product design presentations.

Warm-Cool Split
Warm-Cool Split

Sets up opposing temperature light colors (amber/orange vs. cool blue) to create dramatic color contrasts. Fits stylized cinematic concepts or sci-fi environments.

Dramatic Rim
Dramatic Rim

Arranges intense directional lights behind and adjacent to the subject, casting hard silhouettes and tracing outline shapes, leaving the camera-facing surfaces dark.

Butterfly
Butterfly (Beauty Setup)

Spawns the main emitter directly above and slightly in front of the camera path. Minimizes surface wrinkles and textures, classic in high-fashion modeling renders.

Double Sun
Double Sun

Mimics a binary star environment, generating stylized double directional highlights and shadow structures. Ideal for sci-fi desert landscapes and artistic concepts.

3. Controlling Rigs (Parametric Sliders)

Selecting a rig's collection or empty controller handle in the SLM list opens the Rig Properties sidebar panel, containing specialized sliders:

  • Global Scale & Distance: Adjusts the distance of all emitters from the target, scaling the entire rig radius symmetrically.
  • Base Energy & Contrast: Base Energy acts as a global exposure multiplier for the entire rig. Contrast scales the energy ratio between Key and Fill lights to control shadow hardness.
  • Height & Tracking Height: Height raises or lowers the emitters vertically. Tracking Height moves the look-at target empty up or down to concentrate lights on specific features.

4. Custom Presets (Saving & Loading)

In addition to the built-in lighting rigs, Scene Light Manager allows you to save your own custom lighting setups, rigs, controllers, and shaders as reusable presets.

💾 Saving a Custom Preset
  1. Group your custom lights, rigs, targets, and helper objects (like blockers/bouncers) into a Collection.
  2. Select that collection in the Scene Light Manager list or keep one of its objects active.
  3. Open the Presets... menu at the top of the interface and click Save Selected Collection as Preset....
  4. Enter a name for your preset in the popup dialog and click OK.
📂 Loading a Preset

Once saved, your custom presets will dynamically populate in the following menus under the Custom Presets header:

  • The Presets... menu in the Scene Light Manager N-Panel.
  • The Light Presets column in the Quick Pie Menu (Shift + L or custom shortcut).

Clicking a custom preset will instantly load the saved collection, restore all parent-child relationships, drivers, and constraints, and add the objects back to your scene.

❌ Deleting a Preset

If you no longer need a custom preset:

  1. Open the Presets... menu (or Pie Menu).
  2. Click Delete Custom Preset....
  3. Select the preset you wish to remove from the drop-down menu in the dialog.
  4. Click OK to permanently delete the preset file from your disk.

📁 How Presets are Saved:
Your presets are stored as native Blender .blend files inside Blender's user configuration folder: .../config/scene_light_manager/presets/ Because presets are stored in your user configuration directory, they are fully persistent across addon updates and will not be deleted when reinstalling or updating Scene Light Manager.