Problem with lights

[Lapinourson]

Hi!
(First, I'd like to apologize if my english is bad, because I'm french)
I'm quite new to 3D, and doing it just for fun, but I have a problem and I hope someone can help me out.

Here's the problem: I made a lamp, a simple lamp, that gives light (I put a directional spot in the bulb) but when it lights the plan, the lamp disappears in the dark. But when i switch on my real lamp, even with no more light, I can see it... I would just like to see the lamp without having to put an omni above it.

So...My real question is:
How can I do so the light which starts from the lamp reflects on an object (like a box) and illuminates the lamp back?
(Sorry again for my english)

Here's a picture to help you understand me.

[Orkron]

3d software doesn't work quite the same way real life does...and ur eyes are WAY more sensitive than the monitor's receptors so...

In real life, even a small amount of light bounces off everything. In a 3d enviornment like ur above, u have nothing in the sky unlike the real sky which has an atmosphere that the light bounces off of...so in 3d u either fake the bounce with GI (glabal illumination) or u add multip[le lights to your scene.

Your coice is to use GI, which I'm not in front of max so I can't walk u thru it here...or u can add an omni etc in addition to the spot to illuminate the scene.

now if you want the floor to remain dark and the lamp to be lit up, u can add an omni to the scene, and in the settings u can tell it to not include the floor (plane)...

hope that helps.

[Lapinourson]

Thank you very much for this quick answer! Helped me out a lot!

[Vestax159]

Also if you want light to reflect off an object you can apply material to that object and adjust the materials reflection and that should work??

Im also very new!

[Lapinourson]

Well I tried the reflection and the refraction thing, but nothing works. It works for materials and geometries, but not for lights...

But thank you!

[rk821]

hi there
i have an idea u can add avolum light or afog effect from the light modifie rollout
u can decrece the cone of the light
try it
good luck

[shikav4]

Do you need to make some thing like this:

[Lapinourson]

Do you need to make some thing like this:

Well, I don't know exactly what you did, but if the thing that illuminates the scene may be seen as well, that's probably what I wanna do.

Sorry for the late answer...

[shikav4]

I used Mental Ray. What I did was I created the geometry first. Then I added a skylight to the scene. And at last a MRarealight to act as the spotlight.

Then in the Indireact Illumination Parametes I turned on Final Gather. And that all. The skylight lightens the scene as you wanted and the spotlight lightens the geometry.

In case you dont want to use Menatl Ray you can simply creat an omni light and turn off cast shadows.

[Lapinourson]

Thank you for that, i'll try that soon^^