max 8 emissive maps

seforin

Ok everyone, I know ive at one point or another brought this up, but I never got a definent answer on how this works.

now I created a All black texture except the part thats going to glow, but in max 8 I want it to set it that it has some sort of self illumination to the area itself, kinda similar to these models had.

http://www.dominancewar.com/1/interviews/image/rockstar_2.jpg
http://www.dominancewar.com/1/finals/team_2/14_ElysiumGX/winpose.jpg

Could someone please explain how you plug and play emissive maps for max?

I understand how they work (Creating them) But I dont understand how you plug and play them in max for rendering....please any help would be like awesome!

MoP

Put your glow map into the Self-Illumination slot, and tick the "color" checkbox next to the Self-Illumination swatch in the main material.

Then if you're using DX Display of Material, you should see the glow map correctly in the viewport, and regardless when rendered.

seforin

ok so I click on the self-illuminating slot then click on my texture (bitmap) and then once in in there under "output" I click "enable color map"

Or no?

EDIT::

Im retarded, I got it, dont listen to me, thanks you really helped me out!!

now if I wanna increase the distance of my illumination how do I go about that?

MoP

Well, the glow map is only a fake "overbright" thing added on top of the texture, it doesn't actually emit light.
If you want it to look like it's illuminating more, just blur out and expand your glow map. That's all that Vitaliy and ElysiumGX did in their renders that you posted.

seforin

ah I figured as much , just wasnt sure if it actually had a setting or not , so wanted to double check, thanks again for your help, Im going to be working on this for a new character soon

Joshua Stubbles

If it's only for a render, you can also make the emissive map a separate advanced lighting material. That way, it WILL actually emit light, if you turn on radiosity.