Many objects in renders should glow, like buttons & computer screens. What's the best way to make them "glow?" Especially for screens, since the illumination should be even across the screen (not bright in the center).

Hmm, I know a great tut for that but the TOS prevents me linking it here directly.

Sorry to come off as rude but you should try to google it as it will be more direct than asking here.

Try this open google and type "Dreamlight 3D emissive" and a tut should come up called "Yours To Copy Now - Basic 3D Training" which covers emissive surfaces in DS and Iray.

There are iray presets in the "shader presets" in DS that will set a glow on a material zone. You would need to select the object and the material zone you want to glow on the surface tab in DS, then doubleclick the emissive shader preset. You can then select a jpg for the image you wish to glow and play with the settings for the glow amount. DZfire at the DAZ store also has some iray presets that do most of the work for you, but as Razor42 mentioned you could do a google search for how to do this for more information.

The easiest way is to simply copy the "base color" map to the "Emission Color" slot and set the emission color to anything other than black ( 0 0 0 ) . This will make most things glow.

You will want to change the "Luminance Units" to something suitable for the surface you are trying to make glow. cd/m^2 is a little on the low power side. kd/m^2 is much stronger. You might need to experiment to find what one is best for what you are wanting to illuminate. Switching to "W" (watts) opens up "luminance Efficancy" which is in lumen per watt.

Turn "two Sided Light" to Off unless you want light emitting from both sides of the surface (not very useful for a button on a console)

There is also an "Emissive" shader that should really be used on the surface you want to make glow. You can also use Emission profiles ( "IES" profiles ) if you want to do something a bit more fancy.

I use the aforementioned "simple" version to make things like computer screens and TVs glow with a picture on them.I'm sure there is a right way to do it, but this way works for me :) here is a render I've been working on that shows what I get when I use this method. It's a bit rough still. I haven't gotten the bodysuit just right yet, but it's getting close to what I want.

Pretty cool pic; I like it!

Thank you everyone! My renders definitely just got better. :)

Ok, why can't I get the yellow spots to be orange? I have gotten them to be both yellow and red, and have changed the color reflecting off the surrounding area to be orange, but the objects themselves are only yellow or red... I tried like 20 combinations of settings (not exaggerating)

Color temperature plays a big role in accurate lighting for emission values. The default value is a base 'daylight' value. Higher values are bluer, lower values are down into the yellow-red wavelengths. As a rule, fire and incandescent bulbs should be well into the red wavelengths. That light in the render above looks pretty close to the sodium lamp on the path next to my window. The bulb has a distinct yellow amber color, but the light is more of an orange. You'll need to read up on the various emission values. Especially lumens and color temperature. These lights are based on real world models and will act a lot different than standard 3Delight or Firefly lights. Base color does not come into play in emission lighting. That's covered by color temperature. You can leave it at the default value and use image maps. This works well for screens, displays, signs and whatnot. Basically, for a better orange value, turn color temp down more.

Madbat's right. Until you're sure exactly what temperature the light should be, keep it at the default (6500), and just adjust the emission color. One thing I've also noticed in my own renders is that the strength of the light can affect it's color to a certain degree. If I have a blue-violet light @ 6500, if I make it too strong, it appears more purple than blue. You might want to try sliding your orange color a little more towards red to see if that helps.

Don't bother with the Emmisive shader as it is just the Iray Uber shader with the color, temperature and luminance pre-set and badly preset at that.