Hey, for my animations, which would be better to do:
For spaceship engine glows just take a material with a full Emit value and run radiosity (this idea is coming from the tutorial in the Blender Book)
or
Parent lamps to the engine nacelles of my starfighters.
In my space battle i want it to be realistic when a ship flies by another one, the engine glow lights up the neighboring ship hull…if ya know what i mean.
You could do either of those things, and there is another option as well. Rendering the material as a halo creates a nice glow effect. I would try them all, and see which one looks best for your animation.
If you pair up and halo (or better, a cluster of them) with lamp, you can get a pretty neat effect.
Martin
Using a normal lamp would be much faster and more trouble-free than radiosity, especially if the ships are flying past pretty quickly and you won’t have much time to examine the subtle details of the shading.
Yeah, I’ve messed around with the Halos before. That with lamps is what I have and probalby will stay with. Messing with radiocity took forever on my old pc and will effectively melt the insides of my pc if i try and do it on a full 5 minute film render. THanks, i think i’ll stay with lamps and halos.