# arnold mesh lights If you are using the Arnold rendering system in Maya, you have the ability to turn any geometric mesh element into a glowing light. This is great for making lightbulbs and light-sabers in Maya. ## build the mesh Create a geometric mesh of an object you want to turn into a light. It can be a simple sphere for a light bulb or a long cylinder for a light-saber. You need to use Polygon models, Arnold doesn’t let you use Surfaces for lights. Consider [[boolean modeling]] and [[sculpting tools]] or even [[type tool in maya|type objects]]. ## make it a light Go to the **Arnold tab** on the Shelf. Select the object in your scene and pick the **Create Mesh Light** icon. It looks like a glowing cube. ![[Pasted image 20221116131136.png]] The object will now function as a light source. You can adjust things like the color, intensity, and exposure. You can choose to cast shadows or not and what color those shadow are. You may need to push up the Intensity and Exposure to get more than a simple glowing object. ![[Pasted image 20221116131804.png]] The object itself is still a geometric mesh so you can give it a material and tweak the material settings like any other object. Some of the material settings will carry over from the light settings. Some of the material settings will affect how the light shines so definitely fiddle with the settings to see what happens. ![[Pasted image 20221116131952.png]] ## render Remember, this is an Arnold light so you will need to render with Arnold. Depending on how many lights you have, Arnold will take time to render so be prepared to initiate the render and go do something else for awhile. --- Learn more… - https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/a5AFMUG/Ai+Mesh+Light --- tags: #3d #maya #lighting #resources home: [[! 3d modeling- maya]]