Forum: DAZ|Studio


Subject: Emit lights from any surfaces

thegoodtaste opened this issue on Nov 22, 2005 ยท 7 posts


thegoodtaste posted Tue, 22 November 2005 at 2:39 AM

Can I emit lights from any surfaces in DAZ Studio? Wich is the set up for this? Thanks


JenX posted Tue, 22 November 2005 at 5:02 AM

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=946486&Start=1&Artist=MorriganShadow&ByArtist=Yes

It really depends on what you are doing. For example, I've linked to an image in my own gallery, where I used 3 point lights inside the "flame" of the staff to emulate a blue flame. The easiest way to configure the lights that you want *inside* an objet is to go to the scene panel and drag the light to be "Parented" by the figure. Then, you'll notice in the Parameters tab that the x-y-z setup of the light is now relative to the figure. It's all manual, but it's still relatively easy to do. MS

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thegoodtaste posted Tue, 22 November 2005 at 5:32 AM

Thanks for your answer, Morrigan. Its similar to I ask, but I refer to emissive light from surface,not from inner, some type of radiation, without transparecy. Thanks again.


PickersAngel posted Tue, 22 November 2005 at 5:56 AM

Have you tried adjusting the Ambient settings in the Surfaces panel?


RHaseltine posted Tue, 22 November 2005 at 8:59 AM

Ambient will make a surface look as it is glowing, but it won't cast light onto other objects. Light-emitting surfaces aren't available in DAZ|Studio yet, and I don't think they are in Poser Firefly either so they may not be part of the Renderman specification to which both Firefly and 3Delight adhere - if they are we may get them at some stage in the future.


nysalor posted Thu, 24 November 2005 at 5:13 PM

You can turn off the limits for your ambience setting by double clicking on 'Ambient Strength' in the Advanced Surfaces tab and then setting 'Respect Limits' to 'No" in the resulting popup.

If you then set your ambient strength high (I often use ranges between 200-400%)and use a light ambient colour you can simulate an object glowing.

You can sometimes use point lights to help with the effect. For things like glowing screens, throwing a spotlight with the angle spread adjusted directly onto the screen can also be quite effective.

As an example, I recently used settings like the above to make a dark textured floor visible without adding extra lights. See the Renderosity gallery at

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1094910&Start=1&Sectionid=43&filter_genre_id=3&WhatsNew=Yes

Before I upped the ambience the floor was completely dark.

Message edited on: 11/24/2005 17:17


thegoodtaste posted Thu, 24 November 2005 at 6:10 PM

Thanks Nysaylor for your answer. It has been very handy.