Making lights..

Im new in doing building, I finish one but I need to add the lights.. but I couldnt figure how to do them..

anyone can explain it to me? thanks!

Set the material to Light then make like a gremlin.

Lights don't work very well. They ought to be lovely and someday, they probably will... but until then:

a) There is a setting, "local lights" or something like that, which completely changes the appearance of lights on the client side; so you will have to design your lights for two audiences who do not really see the same thing

b) Even with "local lights" on, if you are accustomed to the light sourcing in FPS games you will find that in SL to be severely lacking.

That being stated, a trick I have heard about in these forums is to create two actual "light" prims: one for the light itself, which looks like a light-bulb, fire, lantern, or whatever, and one for the actual light, which is large, invisible, and set to the light prim-type.

Personally I have, after considerable resistance, given up on this and turned off local lights in my client... instead of lighting my environment I force the sun using the debug menu. A description of this can be found here.

Good luck,

im sorry.. i didnt said what kind of lights.. im looking to do some "party lights".. I saw them in some night clubs and I know where to buy them, but I dont enough money so I want to do them..

* what I really need is to the part that is proyected from the lamp to the floor.. the color-cylinder part..

then I have to animate them, but that I will ask in the scripting forum..

thanks!

Hernan, I assume you are toaling about the colored splotlights often used at clubs in SL. The beam of light you are talking about is pretty easy to model. It is just a lit cylinder which is narrowed at one end and textured with an alpha gradient.

If you don't know how to make an object light up, it's down at the bottom of the dialog box when you clcik on the "object" tab in the editor. THere's a drop down menu for materials. Light is one of the options.

If you don't know how to make an alpha gradient, you will need Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Gimp, or an equivilent image editing program. It takes about 1.5 seconds to create. The gradient on the alpha channel should go from light gray to black. This will give you a texture that is slightly transparent at one end, fading to completely invisible at the other end.

If you don't know how to work with alpha channels, see the help in your software package, or read through any of the thousands of available online tutorials on the subject.

Have fun

i dont know how well this will work but instead of doing all that work (Lol) you could make the light stand, then make the shape of the beam, make the beam the color you want it to be, and add smoke texture, although it would be a solid object and would give off any glow (unless you made it) it would be best to point the light UPWARD lol.

All what work? You're suggesting the exact same thing I said to do. You just packaged the explanation a little differently. It's a 5 minute job, any way you want to explain it.

You are assuming Hernan has a "smoke texture", as you call it. I suggested he make one. That's the only difference between what I said and what you said. Is taking the 30 seconds required to create an alpha gradient really enough of a chore to deserve the label, "all that work"?

WHy not just go to one of the teleport stations and grab the free party light pack? I found it on my first day in-world.

Hi, there. Just thought I'd throw my technique into the mix.

Local lighting is cool but it slows things down. And I've been wary in making most of my objects into "Light" ones.

A quick, cheap way to make spotlight for me, is to rez a cone. Stretch it lengthwise, and texture it with the Blank texture. Then using the texture transparency, put it at around 68 or higher. And if you want different colours, just select one from the swatches in the build tool. The louder the hue, the brighter the spotlight looks.

I have these scattered thru my place and even if they aren't set to light, they still brighten up the room.

Exactly. There is a free 'Party in a Box' that you can pick up from any of the LARGE telehubs, like the Stillman telehub.

The 'Party in a Box' comes complete with a light controller that allows you to change the color of the lights by clicking on the control panel.