In an effort to further optimize a scene I would like to take advantage of forward renderings lighting channels and create 2 light setups. One being a complex and detailed static light setup for baked lights and static objects on channel one and the second being a much simpler dynamic setup for moveable objects only on channel 2.
My goal here is to have the simple lighting setup be responsible only for casting light on and shadows from the moveable objects, that’s it. Nothing else in the scene should receive light from these lights, nor should anything else in the scene cast dynamic shadows from these lights.
The way that lighting channels in UE work allows me to accomplish half of this, my moveable objects, which are on lighting channel 2, are able to receive light from my lights on channel 2 while the rest of the scene does not. The problem however comes down to the fact that the static objects are unable to receive shadows cast from these lights and moveable objects without also receiving light. The only way to get my static objects to receive shadows would be to put them on lighting channel 2 as well, however in this case my static objects will also receive light which defeats the whole purpose.
What I need is to either
A.) Tell the light to cast shadows but not light
or
B.) Tell the ground surface to receive shadows but not receive light from lights on Channel 2
or
C.) As a last resort attach a transparent plane with no collision on it under every moveable object and tell it to receive no light from anywhere but receive dynamic shadows
Everything really hinges on being able to have surfaces receive shadows but not light based on lighting channels. Any ideas?
Thanks!