How to make self illumination material in Bryce?

Don't know if this is what you're after:
http://www.btinternet.com/~jarec/2020/tutorials/b4radiosity.htm

Radiosity is bounced light from another source. Sounds like Duke is after what is referred to as;

*Self-Illuminated Objects/Material
*Light Emitting Objects/Material

Its when a mesh can itself becomes a light source, throwing light out in all directions in the shape of the mesh. Think glow in the dark platic toy that you would get out of a cereal box. Or, those glowing necklaces you would get at the fair.

Bryce cannot do this, it would have to be faked. But, not to put Bryce down, a lot of renderers cannot do this. But, its easier to find than what you would think, Blender can do it. (internally or with a 3rd party renderer like Indigo)

This is one of the ablilities I had discussed with DAZ to give Bryce 6 around when alpha testing had started, but it just couldn't be done (right now), and I'm not sure if we would ever want it in Bryce, as the render times would be ridiculous. (maybe later with the advent of 8 core cpus, lol)

AS

.....but take whatever object you want to self illuminate, and give it some transparancy,  a little reflection, and select additive.  Next create a light source inside of the object and this is what you get.  With a little more time, you could probobly achieve better quality than what I presented here.

The thing I would have to figure out is how to get soft glowing edges instead of these hard ones.

Using translucent materials you can kind of achieve the effect, but it's still faking the funk.  It involves you putting lights inside objects, and of course you're still dealing with ye olde fashioned "sphere and spot", not shaped like neon tubing.  Or a bazillion sphere lights made into the shape of the item... sort of.  I don't even want to concieve the render times on that.  My computer hates me enough as is. :c)

When I want something to look like its emitting light I fake it by ramping up the ambience value in the material editor and using gentle radial/spot lights. Depending on where the lights are it can be a good idea to switch off cast shadows for the 'light source' too.

This one I also clicked on Additive for the element inside the bulb, as well as disabling sunlight and turning off the atmosphere, so here it's just the 3 radials; 1 in the green globe, 1 in the lamp and 1 in the naked bulb.

Both the naked bulb one and the lamp one are radials stretched out and squeezed thin.

(I also switched off cast shadows in the lamp and in the element inside the naked bulb, just so that the casting of light is the only thing you see, not the casting of shadows as well.)

wow..if Agent Smith can figure out the Blender menus, he can do anything!...;) sorta the approach I use, but not nearly so refined...;)

alexclark,

How did you do that custom volume material?

I'm trying that just by duplicating the element and changing the mat that's already there to volume, and trying to boost the fuzziness a bit.

It'll probably take 6 years to render....

Fran, Its an old one I have stored from when I was trying to create a realistic atmosphere. I've sent you a copy of it to your e-mail.

dhama, AgentSmith, brholte, mboncher, FranOnTheEdge, alexclark, pakled - Thanks for councils.

Thanks Alex, I'll take a look at the differences between yours and mine, should be interesting.

DukeNukem2005,
You're very welcome.  I find I usually learn something whenever someone asks a question.  So thank you!

Alex,
Can you give the settings for the bryce scene where you had the glowing sphere?  I'm trying out your 'atmos.mat' but so far it's not glowing yet...

Oh you're using 2 spheres!  The material I made I just used the one, didn't need to duplicate the object.

That's interesting.  Thanks.

Er... I see you've got the Light Lab and the Material Lab open at the same time...

Is that only possible on the Mac?  Or can I do it on the PC too?

Its possible if you edit your screen caps in GIMP to make posting easier : )

Ah, cheating, I like it!

Check out the 'Glowing Objects' download at the link :
http://www.pumeco.com/pumeco/

What "Glowing Objects" download?