Hi folks, I was wondering if Carrara can make say a sphere glow the same way as Vue-with a radius adjustment.  I know how to adjust the intensity of glow via the glow channel (any color but black will give an object a "glow" with no external lighting-black no glow, white maximum glow.  Can Carrara do this?  Jan

 Yes, just engage the Aura function. You'll find it in the Effects tab for the object in the Assembly Room. There does need to be a glow color or value in the Shader Tree for the Aura to work.

I usually use a slightly different method.  First create the sphere and make have a glow channel using the multiply function.  Source 1 should be the color you want the glow to be, and the second source a value mode either 1-100 or 1-1000 depending on just how bright you want it to look.  Note that high values will wash out the color too much so stick with something between 50 and 60.

Next I create a bulb light and center it inside the ball.  This works a bit better than aura because it also creates a more realistic indirect lighting element on nearby objects and allows the glow to cast shadows.  Use the light sphere effect on the effects tab to do the aura itself.   The only caveat is that you need to make sure thelight source is centered inside the sphere you create.  It then helps to group them in case you need to move them as a unit better.

Some folks like to use anything glows but I don't like the extra amount of memory it uses.  It also seems to slow down renders because the system has to determine it's geometry on the fly.

I hope this helps.

Rich
(Sparrownightmare)

Mark and Rich, thanks guys for your quick reply.

Mark, found it, tried it, works great.  I have a space station-inside the ring, I have a ring of lights that I'm going to use it on.

Rich, copied your tutorial to word, need to try it next (after closing and getting off the internet-
going to see how it works on thruster exhausts.  Jan

Hey Sparrow I get a little lost in your explanation...can you post a render from your idea??

If you take a look at some of my current images you can see a version of the idea.  I use the same process to create glow effects on suns and stars.  It also looks great when used for things like my starship weapons which need to have an uneven pulsed light look.  I also use it for the exhaust of most of my starship models.  Check this image out.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1024774

The sun uses the process I outlined above with just a small lens flare thrown in.

Rich, "dun" tried your method on me exhaust, works great-

Mark, going to use your method on lighting up the station's ring (the station's warp drive engine).  Jan 

Glad I could help.

Thanks Sparrow... maybe I need to try this way too.

Yeh, it works a lot better than the aura function. :)