is it better to work with a few toa  gazillion of tiny lights..or with one huge spot light that one stretches as far as ti can light up/
i'm working on a black background.. trying to light a fallen wine glass. probs is... the base doesn't get lighted..and if i do light it..with a spot..i get a white spot (glare). i've dimmed it.. made it softer.. but i still get a glare. yeah..i do know glass is tough to work with.
any ideas? intensity..low. infinite lite.no gradient. squared. my print screen isn't working otherwise i'd have put up a print screenof the light lab...

I tend to start with one main and add if and when needed. If you get your screen cap working might be able to better advise.

and yes..i had to use about 4 spots..since it was dark in lots of places... and also..if i didn't use them..there'd be strange shadows on the metal mats...

the more lights, the more time to render..have to balance it for your needs. I tend to use dim radial lights dropped into dark areas to pull out the details..

Have you tried modifying the glass material?  Reduce the reflectivity a bit.  Maybe spread it out some?  If your happy with the lighting the way it is for the whole scene a few little tweaks on your materials can make a big difference.  :)

As far as I'm concerned... the more lights... the more polygons...the more metaballs the better!

But seriously for a scene like that I'd use the three light approach, which is as follows.

A)  Shadow casting light to the right or left / infront
B) a filler light on the opposite side / infront  different colors
C) a rear light (no shadow)  far back above the scene

On second thought transparencies are a different matter.

You might want to tweak the glass material for a bit with some basic lighting before trying to light certain portions of it.  The specularity seems a little broad for example.  You might want to try to crisp that up.

Er, Rosie, what's your TIR? And ray depth? You need at least TIR 4 to get glass to sparkle prettilly.

TIR - 2
ray depth -6
..this was just for the preview render
what's the best specs for render to disc..u reckon?  ( 300dpi..24x 18 inches) ?

That would be 7200x5400, right? Probably premium without any advanced features - 4 or 9 RPP, blurred transmissions, no blurred reflections, no soft shadows, no true ambience.

starting the render to disc within the next half hour. countdown to a laptop burn begins... ......

I like the little preview images you are showing us. I like the direction this is going. I am looking forward to seeing the finished piece. Have you considered using any lights other than the cone lights or radial lights? Perhaps one of the boxy parallel lights stretched out longways?

i tried other lights.. kept getting really bad reflections even with a low spec, or it just wan't lighting good...
i'm gonna post work it a bit in photoshop..
want to do a series of five like this..this is the second one so far.