how to make a light actually emit light. 3ds max

seantree

this may seem like an odd question but I'm in need of some help. I am attempting to build my first hi-res environment and am struggling with getting my lights to, well, look like lights. I've tried some spots with the light holding a mat with 100% self illumination. it looks decent but the light from the spot leaks out of the light socket. is it just a matter of tweaking the cone and attenuation? any input would be great. I've never attempted to light a real scene before. thanks!!

rooster

hm, I think I might understand the problem but I'm a bit confused, some pics would really help here I think

Dio

Like Roo said a pic or two would really help identify your issue. I assume when you say that light leaks out you are refering to bulb object, is that correct? Do you want volume lighting effects or to have an object emit light? Self-Illumination, mind you, has nothing to do with the lighting in the scene really; set at 100 the in-scene lighting is ignored and the object rendered at full brightness of the texture, thus there is no shading to reflect the diminsions of the object. One thing that might help is that light sources can be set to negative amounts so you can deminish lighting where needed.

Delaney King

I use two spots to do a bulb. Both are attenuated so that they dont take too long to render. One is the light emitted from the bulb, the other points backwards and lights the light object. The light bulb element is self illuminated mesh.
I also sometimes make a special render where I give everything in my scene a black 100% self illuminated material and a white material to all my light sources. I then filter these in photoshop to gaussian blue and add subtle layers of glow and composite them back into the scene. Its waaaaaay faster than tuning glows.

Post a picture and we can definately see whats going on.