Render Layer Override Question

[marfanity-hilley]

I'm using Render Layers in Maya 7 for the first time. Since I can no longer just pick which passes I want to render as in previous versions, I'm having a little trouble. I was following these instructions I found on GCTalk, which seem to work fine, except that I have tons of objects and it would take forever for me to select each one individually to uncheck "primary visibility".
I tried grouping all these objects together, but the group doesn't have a shape node associated with it (which is where "primary visibility" is located). I tried going under Display in my Attribute Editor, right clicking "visibility", and selecting "Create Layer Override", but then my shadows don't render either.

Am I missing something? Does anyone know how to hide this group, while still seeing the shadows on the plane below?

Thanks anyway to anyone who read my post. I got it solved. Here's the reply I recieved on CGTalk:

QUOTE
to switch the Primary Visibility for all the objects, select them in the Outliner then press the down arrow to select their shapes and finally use the Attribute Spread Sheet Editor (Windows>General Editors>) to change the primary visibility for all the objects.

[joojaa]

Yes, with more controll you have MORE work. But this said theres nothing in the old or new system thats realy usefull (ok the new is better but still worse thana what one normaly renders with mr multipassing in one go)

Ok your not very adept at maya usage if you actualy think settings many things is painfull, wich leads to a question, namely have you ever heard of Window->General Editors->Attribute Spread Sheet...? But yes you dont even need to select the shapes jsut selecting the trasforms and pushing the render tab is enough.

I mean most of us actualy do this sort of thing regulary NO problem. Tough to be totaly honest having a thousand individual layers is NOT a good idea, unless your doing somesort of REALY complex zcomp. I mena rendering out one shadowpass and and a z coverage and a beauty is enough for most works. OR at max a few of theese layers.

Anyway mayas not about what i want bat whatever the user of certain sytem wants, thing is tough every maya user NEEDS to have acces to atleast one tech even if its only on first monday of the month. Thats just teh way mayas designed to be. BUt sure one could build a sytem for you taht mimics the 6.5 behaivour if you wished?

[joojaa]

meanwhile heres something you may find usefull

CODE
{
  $curr=editRenderLayerGlobals -q -currentRenderLayer;
  $objs=editRenderLayerMembers -q $curr;
  $all=select -r (listRelatives("-p",ls("-g")));
  select -d $objs;
  editRenderLayerMembers -nr $curr ls -sl;
  for ($item in ls -sl){
    setAttr ($item+".primaryVisibility") 0;
  }
}

it copies over all other geometry to the curret layer and sets all the just copied geos pimary visibility to 0 (off), this should make your life A LOT easier. (nb if you redner form commendline you can now adopt the same strategy as before with 4 more lines ) put it in your shelf and push it whan you have what you want isolated.

PS it does not move lights or cams over!