by Manh Huynh·Rendering
Images © Manh Huynh. Used for product review; image policy.
Custom Lights earns its place in the superhive library by pulling light creation and scene-wide management into one Blender sidebar tab, with version 2.0 adding Blender 5.0 compatibility.
Custom Lights is a Blender addon built to speed up lighting work by pairing quick light creation with a centralized management interface. From a single sidebar tab you can add standard lights at the cursor, apply custom lighting effects, and manage every light in the scene from one place.
Base lights cover Point, Sun, Spot, and Area types in Rectangle or Ellipse shapes, and new lights are grouped into collections automatically. On top of those, the addon includes a Tracker Light that follows a target object, Linear and Sphere gradient emission planes with a transparent black option, a Translucent Light Plane, Simple God Rays for spot lights, plane gobos, and tools to convert meshes into emission sources or set color by Kelvin temperature.
Version 2.0 is updated and tested for Blender 5.0 and adds World Brightness control, a per-collection brightness multiplier, split Linear and Sphere gradient operators, new plane gobos, and an L shortcut to open a light's parameters. The Manage Lights panel gives a collection-based view with direct control over color, brightness, size, and visibility.
Custom Lights is best for blender artists who want to create and manage lighting setups from a single sidebar panel.
Custom Lights is completely free to download and use.
Custom Lights 2.0 has been updated and tested for compatibility with the Blender 5.0 release. The same version also refreshed the Manage Light interface, added World Brightness control and a per-collection brightness multiplier, introduced new plane gobos, and updated Black Body color values to align with Blender's physical light calculations. If you need to confirm behaviour on a specific Blender build, check the developer's page for the current details before installing so you know exactly what to expect.
Custom Lights installs like a standard Blender addon. Download the custom_light.zip file, open Blender, and go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons. Click Install, select the zip file, then enable Custom Lights. Once enabled, press N in the 3D Viewport to open the sidebar and click the Custom Lights tab. From there the panels let you add lights, apply effects, and manage your scene's illumination, so everything runs from one place inside the viewport.
Custom Lights can rapidly create standard Blender lights at the cursor's position, including Point, Sun, Spot, and Area lights in Rectangle or Ellipse shapes, and it groups new lights into collections automatically. Beyond base lights, it adds tools such as the Tracker Light, which uses area lights that track a target object, Linear and Sphere gradient planes, a Translucent Light Plane, Simple God Rays for Spot lights, and the option to convert any mesh into an emission source.
Custom Lights includes a quick-access shortcut: press L while a light is active to open its parameters popup menu. For broader control, the Manage Lights panel gives a centralized view of all lights and emissive meshes organized by collection, where you can adjust color, brightness or power, and size or shape directly from the list, select individual lights or whole collections by name, and toggle viewport, render, and camera visibility.
Custom Lights is listed as free in this catalog. Beyond that, licensing terms can change over time, so check the developer's page for the current details before you rely on any particular arrangement. The addon covers base light creation, advanced custom lighting tools, and a centralized Manage Lights panel, so you can try the full workflow in your own Blender projects at no listed cost and decide whether it fits your setup.
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