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How to create light-emitting surfaced similar to "Arealight Plane"

joe_96cb244b30joe_96cb244b30 Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in Daz Studio Discussion

Hi. I am new to Daz Studio, and scratching my head over this issue. In one of the lighting presets, there is an object called "AreaLight Plane" and when this is included in a scene, the plane casts ambient light.

I need to create an identical object to this, and after some reading, believe that the way to accomplish this is by creating an object - another plane - and setting the ambient lighting to white, and the strength to 100%. However, there should also be a way to set a flag so this object will emit might, which I cannot find anywhere in the settings (from the Surfaces - Editor - All tools) .

In short, I need to know how to turn an object into a light emitter. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Regards,
Joe

Comments

  • Oom FooyatOom Fooyat Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    There is a lot more to surfaces then the default material will provide. What you have done is to make a surface look like it is emitting light. The default material can not make a surface that actually emits light. If you click on "!Uber AreaLight Help" you will get a description on how to make a true light emitting surface. You can also make your own light emitter in Shader Mixer.

    Cheers! Oom

  • joe_96cb244b30joe_96cb244b30 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the tip on the Uberlight help! I would not have found that myself.
    Best regards,
    JS

  • GeorgehazeGeorgehaze Posts: 152
    edited December 1969

    Oom Fooyat said:
    There is a lot more to surfaces then the default material will provide. What you have done is to make a surface look like it is emitting light. The default material can not make a surface that actually emits light. If you click on "!Uber AreaLight Help" you will get a description on how to make a true light emitting surface. You can also make your own light emitter in Shader Mixer.

    Cheers! Oom

    Is there a tutorial on creating light-emitting surfaces in Shader Mixer somewhere? I must have missed that part?

  • Oom FooyatOom Fooyat Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Don't remember if I actually tried it myself yet. :red: In the sticked thread "List of Shader Mixer Tutorials and Recipes" at the top of the page, there is a link, under recipes, to a post at the old forum, named "Fun with area lights".
    I think there is a script somewhere on the General Freepozitory that restore old threads to html with pics.

    Oom

  • ReDaveReDave Posts: 815
    edited December 1969

    Georgehaze said:

    Is there a tutorial on creating light-emitting surfaces in Shader Mixer somewhere? I must have missed that part?

    If your surface already has a texture applied:
    -Open Shader Mixer
    -File->Import From Scene->and select "Material" from the drop-down (it's the default).
    -Go to the brickyard->Roots->Lights->Area Light.
    -Plug the texture you use in Diffuse into the Light Colour of the area Light brick.
    -Apply

    You'll need to adjust a few things:
    1) DS primitives appear to have normals pointing inward so scale them negatively once (e.g. scale the sphere in X scale -100%)
    2) If you leave Decay at the default value of 1 (real world physics value is "2"), and you have an Intensity of 10, all textures you use will probably be whitewashed, so reduce intensity somewhat.
    3) be wary of the default number of samples, not conducive to test renders. ;-)

  • ForbiddenWhispersForbiddenWhispers Posts: 1,427
    edited December 1969

    I know this is a real real real real real OLD post. But I just wanna say thanks to ReDave for his mini tut. I was having a proper full on tantrum because I couldn't get the object to light emit..... Figured it out now.... Ta!

  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    A better way to fix Normal's is now built into DAZ Studio. Use the Polygon Group Editor tool. Select all of the Surfaces you wish to Flip and then you use Reverse Winding Order.

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