C4D Octane HDRI Light Linking not working as expected
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2025 3:53 pm
I'm trying to exclude an object from being affected by the HDRI in Octane – meaning it shouldn’t be lit by the HDRI and shouldn’t cast HDRI-based shadows.
The only method I’ve found is the classic light linking:
→ Exclude environment in the object’s Octane tag
→ and disable “Cast Shadows” in the same tag.
But this disables all shadow casting, including from other lights and self-shadowing – which I don’t want.
The normal light linking workflow doesn’t seem to work with HDRIs, since you can’t assign a separate Light ID to the HDRI like you can with regular lights.
Is there a clean workaround for this?
The only method I’ve found is the classic light linking:
→ Exclude environment in the object’s Octane tag
→ and disable “Cast Shadows” in the same tag.
But this disables all shadow casting, including from other lights and self-shadowing – which I don’t want.
The normal light linking workflow doesn’t seem to work with HDRIs, since you can’t assign a separate Light ID to the HDRI like you can with regular lights.
Is there a clean workaround for this?