Hi not sure if this is in the right area, but I need help on how to…well…yeah…light a lamp. I tried transparency, but it doesn’t seem to have made much effect, other than to have this ugly black and white effect spring up - and still no decent illumination. My question is this - how do I make the lamp shade look like it’s emitting light? Also the emit parameter doesn’t work, it just turns it white, because the shade texture is pale cream. Ideas?
Thanks
Go to blenderguru.com and check out the Inception hallway tutorial pt. 2. He does something similar.
Hi,
It would also help to know which version of Blender you are using.
If you are using Blender 2.56, it has a translucency settings which you can use. It will make light on one side of a mesh brighten the other side of the mesh.
Attached is a blend file and the orange lamp shade has translucency set.
Attachments
Also, compositing might do the trick. Indirect lightning, emit, compositing (adding some glow). Move the lamp on a separate layer and “glow it” 
for glow check blenderguru (pretty much any tut I’ve seen he’s using some glow…) or creature factory dvd (lots of glow there too).
If you actually want it to look as if the lamp object itself is emitting light, go to the materials and change it’s EMIT value. Then go to the WORLD tab and activate INDIRECT LIGHTING. In the GATHER tab below, set it from RAYTRACE to APPROXIMATE. If you render now, your lamp object should be emitting light. Try playing with the values in the INDIRECT LIGHTING tab to get a better result.
Hope this helps 
Happy Blending!
Acro
@AIBlend, thanks for your file, pretty clear how translucency works…