I often render product images of electronic devices. Many of these have a glowing LED to indicate power, etc. I have been having a lot of trouble finding a material that will make a convincing LED. Typically they are designed with a clear lightpipe that directs light from an LED on a PC board inside the product. I have tried using a frosted plastic with a green light or emissive material behind it with little success. It usually isn’t diffuse or bright enough. Typically LEDs have a hotspot too. I usually end up faking it with a a gradient map and an emissive material and no clear lightpipe. This is OK, but not great either.
I have the same problem. I’m a new V-ray user (previously used Alias) and need to create a realistic glowing LED. Does anybody have any tips? I don’t seem to be able to get the emissive material to look right.
I had an LED indicator for a render I jsut did: Chaos: Industry-leading design and visualization software
But I didn’t work too much in trying to make it realistic. It’s just an Omni light behind a frosted glass. But I’m really interested in this topic.
I tried once to model and render an LED light, but I could not get a good result.