Duplicate an existing render layer

User Guide > Rendering and Render Setup > Rendering > Visualize and render images > Visualize scenes and render images > Work with render layers >

You can duplicate any layer in your Maya scene.

You can use this feature to create two layers that are similar with only minor differences. For example, use this feature if you want to have two identical layers, but with raytracing turned on for one layer and turned off for the other. With this feature, you do not need to create the two layers independently - you only need to create one layer and duplicate it. This eliminates the need to reassign objects, materials and attributes in order to create the second layer.

There are two options available with this feature:

You can choose to copy both the objects and render layer properties (e.g. material overrides, render stats) to the new layer; or
You can choose to copy only the objects to the new layer and create new overrides for the duplicated layer.

To duplicate an existing render layer

From the Render Layer Editor, select the layer that you wish to copy.
Select Layers > Copy Layer >
Select one of the two Copy Layer mode. To create an exact duplication of the selected layer, including objects and render layer properties, select With Membership and Overrides. To carry over only objects, select With Membership.