Emission Planes

[jason wilde]

Hello Blenders

I have tried to work this one out for myself by watching a couple of yt videos but I’m still struggling with what should be a simple set up.

In the images Suzzane is being lit by a panel light coming from her right. I want to light her using the emission plane on her left. As you can see, even though my emission plane is turned up to strength 100, there is still no light being emitted and I cannot work out why? 

Please help.

My very best,

Jason

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hey Jason,

You are probably using Eevee.

Try this using Cycles and it will work as you expect. I am no Eevee specialist, but I know, that this is something  that it doesn’t support; you can’t light something with an Emisson Shader on an Object.

[Martin Bergwerf]

Depending on what you want exactly, you could put another Area Light, just ‘in front’ of the emissive Plane.

[jason wilde]

Ha. Again very simple. Blender is like spinning plates. Thanks Martin. 

Im testing to see if there is any difference between the an are light and an emission plane. And I may try to add a gradient texture to the emission plane when I work out my next step.  

[jason wilde]

Hello Martin. Your comment about one light in front of another slipped by me for a bit but on reflection  it may work. Im trying to make lights (panels) whereby the light is stronger in the middle, kind of a hot spot. Not by much. Perhaps 0.5 or 1 stop max (not sure what that is yet in Blender). But also where the light transitions from bright to darker there needs to be a gradual transition rather than a sharp line transition.  Thats what Im trying to achieve and I will give your suggestion a bash. Thank ye.

[Martin Bergwerf]

Oh, if you use a Spotlight, you get a circular gradient for free…(if you use Cycles a really smooth gradient).

You can also use Texture on the Spotlight…There are some amazing looking IES Textures available for free.

[Omar Domenech]

Yep, that’s what I wrote on the other thread, you could use IES lights. They emulate the light pattern and it’s much better than to trying to do it by the render engine.

Lighting is very important, you can calmly take the time to research all those things. You can have the coolest of models and it can fall flat in the presentation due it not being lit properly. So keep on going man, you’re doing great exploring all of these things.

[jason wilde]

Thank you Martin & Omar. For the advice and encouragement. 

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