Non-destructive node based Rendering Workflow

The idea is to have an editor (Like the shading, properties or outliner editors) where the incoming scene can be split out into render nodes.

You could have a render node setup for a certain characters bty layer and their shadow layer. Then a layer for the background. We could add render Setting nodes that could be placed above each renderNode to define render settings. Remove nodes for removing certain scene graph locations. We could then have material assignment and cel statement like methods for gather scenegraph locations to set attributes, camera visibility for example. These nodes have parameters for things like on disk render locations. We would also add the renderNode names as arguments to be passed through for command line rendering.

This would replace the current renderlayer system. Completely replace the idea of "scene linking" with a node based visually flowing workflow so that artists can see what's happening throughout all of their render layers. In vfx studios it's not uncommon to be outputting 20+ layers and it is a big disadvantage of Blenders to not have a scalable solution to this problem.

Foundrys Katana uses this kind of solution for the entire shading, lighting and rendering pipeline. I am not proposing this. I am simply proposing a node based way to non-destructively setup render layers, easily control output locations, layer setup and what render settings each layer uses.

As addition it would be amazing to be able to adjust lighting on a per renderlayer basis as well but I understand that this might be too much of a hassle and could be something that comes at a later date.