Is there a tutorial on how to make things glow?

[Tyion]

I am working in blender with a model that has parts that I would like to make glow. Is there a tutorial I can use on this? or can someone just flat out tell me?

Thank's much!

"Tyion"

[Trylon]

We can tell you - as long as those glowing parts aren't giant crystals

To make them light up the surroundings and the vatar, you'll have to place a light source (omnilight) in or near them.
And to give them the apearence of glowing to the user (you can't see a lamp directly in uru), you'll need to make a lens flare, a sprite.
Now I don;t know the precise settings for sprites/lens flares, but I bet you can find those on the wiki (http://wiki.guildofwriters.com).

[electroglyph]

What's glowing? Everything like a lightbulb or parts of things like the blue veins in the rocks on Amateria? If It's the latter create a base rock texture. Make a second texture for the blue veins that has a transparent background. Create a third texture by applying a gausian blur to the second texture. Paste the third texture over the first to create a glow on the surrounding dark rock. Paste the second texture on top of this to create the light source. Remember that light sources don't have shadows so if you are texture baking in blender do the first layer before you add the light parts. A lot of faking light is actually just adding colors in the right way to textures.

[Tyion]

Basicly guys this is what I want. This is a model from another 3D program I use, but can;'t use for Uru purposes.

I want this glow effect.

[D'Lanor]

That could be done with a sprite.

[Jojon]

What sort (if any) of post effects do we have at our disposal?

While a sprite, or lighmapping on near surfaces, or a combination of the two, will provide a rough approximation, which would no doubt fool most of us, it is still not quite what Tyion is looking for, as far as I can tell.

The simplest solution (through posteffects) would be a blurred copy of the rendered glowing bits, added to the full rendered view, with blur radius scaled by distance.

Several sprites/particles for segments of the object might do it, but probably not worth it. :7

[D'Lanor]

Not much I guess. Cyan does this with sprites. The Neighborhood and Ae'gura lamps look convincing enough to me.

The most important detail of a lamp sprite is its texture. It has to be completely transparent at its edges but there must be a certain amount of opaqueness at its center. And then there is the gradient in between the two which needs to be exactly right.

[electroglyph]

Let me ask a couple of questions. How big is this object and how is it going to be used? Is it a light on a wall or is it a big shiny button in the middle of the floor? I mean is it fixed in one perspective or will the avitar be able to walk around it and change the height or rotational position of vewing? Seems to me you need a simple sprite for the glow. For the two bands and the chrome in between you need a reflection map or what blender calls an environment map. These are used on metal and marble objects like the clockwork floor in the tree pub or the steps in front of the cavern library. By using reflection on the surface you wouldn't have to design a complex sprite with bright bands. That kind of sprite would fall apart when you stepped close and the light looked curved but the sprite was still straight.

Here is a blender tutorial on environment maps. http://www.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/x4881.html

[Nadnerb]

The glow Tyion is looking for based on his example is probably a post processing effect. "Bloom" and other post processing effects are not supported by the version of plasma we're using. The hex isle build seems to use bloom based on the total scene color intensity, but not on any specific material setting. You can get close, however, by using a sprite with the material (layer) blend mode set to ADD.

http://uruexploration.googlepages.com/BoxAgeShadows3.jpg

[Tyion]

YES Nad that is it!