Making Magic Glow and Shine

Author: Que Arres

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Have you ever rendered a scene in DAZ containing magic that just didn't… well, sparkle? This simple tutorial will help you fix that! In this method, I will be making the Throwing Ball from DAZ's Magik Poseable and Conforming FX Figures glow with inner light.

Simply put, set up your DAZ scene as usual. Here, I have Kit the sprite admiring one of his spells. I've made the background gray so that I can see what I'm working on better. There are no lights in this scene yet.

One important thing to do here is TURN OFF THE SHADOWS FOR YOUR MAGIC. The magic will be giving off light, so it shouldn't have a shadow of its own.

If you're using a saved lighting set or a preset, load it now. If you load it afterwards, it may delete the light you'll be adding to make the magic glow, forcing you to start over again. For my scene, the magic will be the primary light source, so I only add an ambient light (i.e. distance light) to brighten the scene. It has the following settings:

This is the render now:

Not much different than the first, but it's a little brighter. Notice how the magic looks dull and flat, not shiny. These last few steps are the key to making it glow.

Go into the Surfaces tab and select the magic's surface (for me, it's magic_dust_1). Go to the Advanced tab and scroll down to the Reflection option. Choose the Reflection Color you want to make your magic shine (since I want a fire-like effect, I make mine yellow) and set the Reflection Strength to 100%. Also, set the Lighting Model to Metallic (under General). Here's how mine looks:

If you were to render it now, the magic would still look dull, and you probably won't be able to see the reflection color you chose either. Don't worry; it'll be important soon.

Here's the heart of the magic: the glow. Create a Point Light and place it as close to the center of your magic as you can. This may take a little patience and practice. When you have the light placed where you want it, turn the shadows on and set the color to what you want. I used orange.

Now, render your scene.

Now that's shiny!

Tweak the lighting and other intensities until you get the desired results. It might take a little experimentation to find the right settings for your scene. I was going for a darker look, so I changed my lighting a bit (added a third light and changed the color of the ambient light as well as turning on shadows for it) and dropped all the light intensities to 50%. I changed the shape of the magic (transparency map) and dropped its reflection and ambient intensities to 50% and its opacity to 25%. I also made the background black. Here's my final render:

Have fun making your own scenes light up!