I remembered using negative lights in Maya a while back before I found out about Light Linking. So I’ve used the same principle in AE as there is no Light Linking in After Effects that I know of- using negative light to subtract light from certain areas of complex 3D scenes, based on where in the scene the negative light is placed.
But what I hadn’t thought of was that the same principle can be applied with Adjustment Lights, but that negative lights can be controlled not only by where they are placed in a scene, but as an Adjustment Light, a negative light also be controlled in a different way by where it is placed in the layer order which seems to make things much easier (so far). I’ve only used it in 2 projects so far but both times it’s worked the way I needed it to.
Thanks for the kind words!