Skip to content
BLBlender

Light Director 2.0 - Procedural Lighting System

by Max Miles·Workflow

Images © Max Miles. Used for product review; image policy.

Why we like it

Light Director 2.0 stands out in the Superhive library for bringing Solaris-style render-gallery lighting workflows into Blender, with both a visual gallery and a centralized lights dashboard.

What is Light Director 2.0 - Procedural Lighting System?

Light Director 2.0 is a procedural lighting system for Blender, inspired by Houdini's Solaris Render Gallery. It captures the state of every light and HDRI setup in your scene and lets you restore any saved setup instantly, so you can experiment with lighting without breaking what you've already built. Every iteration can be stored as its own unique setup.

Rather than duplicating light collections, the add-on stores light visibility, names, and transforms internally, so you can build unlimited rigs inside a single blend file and switch between them instantly. Your HDRI is linked to your lights: switching setups reconstructs the stored World Node Tree, keeping your Environment Texture or Sky settings matched to your lamps. The Gallery turns your setup list into a visual catalog — snap a viewport preview, then click a thumbnail to restore the corresponding rig by eye.

The Lights Manager centralizes your rig into one dashboard for adjusting intensity, color, temperature and other properties without selecting a light. The classic "Direct" button remains at its heart, rotating any number of selected lamps to face your active object with a single click.

Who is Light Director 2.0 - Procedural Lighting System best for?

Light Director 2.0 - Procedural Lighting System is best for blender artists in lookdev, studio, and ArchViz work who version and manage complex light rigs and HDRI environments.

How much does Light Director 2.0 - Procedural Lighting System cost?

Light Director 2.0 - Procedural Lighting System is completely free to download and use.

Key features

  • Non-destructive saving and restoring of every light and HDRI setup in the scene, with single-click recall
  • Stores light visibility, names, and transforms internally to build unlimited rigs in one blend file
  • Synced World Nodes reconstruct the stored World Node Tree so HDRI and Sky settings match your lamps
  • Gallery view: snap a viewport preview and click the thumbnail to restore the corresponding setup
  • Lights Manager dashboard to tweak intensity, color, temperature and other properties without selecting a light
  • "Direct" button rotates any number of selected lamps to face the active object with one click

Tags

#lighting#procedural#hdri#lookdev#workflow#archviz#lights-manager#blender

Frequently asked questions

Which Blender version and render engines does Light Director 2.0 support?

Light Director 2.0 is listed for Blender version 5.0 and is a Blender Extension-compatible add-on. The render engines used are Cycles and Eevee, and the extension type is listed as an add-on. It works with lights and HDRI World setups, saving and restoring their state within your scene. Because supported Blender releases and engine details can change over time, check the developer's page for the latest compatibility information before installing so you know it matches your current setup.

How does Light Director 2.0 handle HDRI and World settings?

Light Director 2.0 links your HDRI to your lights through its Synced World Nodes feature. When you switch between saved setups, it automatically reconstructs the stored World Node Tree, so your Environment Texture or Sky settings always match the lamps in that setup. This means each stored lighting iteration keeps its own environment intact, and you can move between versions without manually rebuilding the World each time. The full HDRI management behaviour is described on the developer's page.

Do I need to duplicate light collections to make lighting versions in Light Director 2.0?

Light Director 2.0 removes the need to duplicate light collections for versioning. Instead, it stores light visibility, names, and transforms internally, letting you build unlimited unique rigs without duplicating anything. You can store multiple non-destructive lighting iterations inside a single blend file and switch between them instantly, rather than repeatedly using "Save As" for each tweak. Save your current rig, tweak it to create variations, or build a new setup from scratch.

What license does Light Director 2.0 use and is it free?

Light Director 2.0 is released under the GPL license and is listed here as free. Because licensing and pricing can change, check the developer's page for the current terms before downloading. A demo video is also available if you want to see the add-on in action before installing, showing the gallery, lights manager, and other workflow features described for the tool. Refer to the developer's page for anything not covered here.

Similar plugins