glowing panels - suggest approach?

[saltflats]

I'd like to render in mental ray (in 3DS Max) some internally lighted, glowing panels like in the attached image.

Like in the photo, the panel are a metal frame (easy part with a translucent frost acrylic skins with blue LED lighting in between the acrylic skins. Like in the photo, I'd like the metal frame to show through the translucent acrylic, yet achieve the glowing blue effect from within.

I'm having difficulty achieving something close.....any advice on how I should approach this to achieve this look?

Is it a mix of physical lighting, crafted bitmaps, glow effects, etc?

Thank you!

[Byteman]

It's been late answer.

There are several options as you've personally stated:

by creating lights physically and by creating light objects. In both methods you may also need a retouching by the help of glow output effect. (Max's traditional glow render effect is a fine alternative, too.)

You may need long cylindrical or rectangular shaped lightd to suit your needs. You may also use the line light, which are all found in photometric light objects' "Shape/Area Shadows" rollout.

Also by adding a light distribution ies file you may achieve the realistic illumination distribution on the surface. It's done by the Light Distribution (type) combo box in the "General Parameters" rollout of your photometric light.

Another method is using "light objects", any object assigned an arch&design material with the "Illuminate the scene (when using FG)" option in Self Illumination (Glow) rollout turned on, illuminates the scene : When final gathering is on, as obvious. Luminance parameters in the same rollout, helps you assign physical values to the illumination of your light objects. This method requires Final Gathering so it takes a longer time to render depending on the quality.

Finally adding glow via Renderer tab of render scene dialog (from Camera shaders division of the Camera effects rollout) by turning on the already assigned -but not enabled- Glare render output effect. Just drag the button to one of the material editor slots and adjust settings.

cheers.