Help: No emissions/glowing lights in cycles

[RubyBard]

I am relatively new to blender and am having trouble getting my ceiling lights to render properly in cycles. They're just flat. Am I missing a shader or a compositing node?

[RubyBard]

For my shading nodes I have:
texture coordinate>mapping>gradient texture>color ramp>hue saturation value>emission>material output

[The Renderer]

Define "flat". If you would like some additional glow around your light you can add it in the compositor with a "glare" node.
If they do not actually give off light (i.e. don't lighten the rest of the scene), something else is wrong but it's impossible to tell what without further information.

[RubyBard]

Originally posted by The Renderer:

Define "flat". If you would like some additional glow around your light you can add it in the compositor with a "glare" node.
If they do not actually give off light (i.e. don't lighten the rest of the scene), something else is wrong but it's impossible to tell what without further information.

They give off light for sure. It the actual bulbs that just look stark white without any of that glare/emissive glow around the bulb. I tried doing the compositor glare node but it just brightened up the entire scene. Is there a way to connect it only to the lights? I'm not very familiar with compositing.

[*P0P$*FR3$H3NM3Y3R*]

Yes you can access the Emission Pass in the Compositor directly.
First make sure to Activate at least 'Emission' Pass or all in general.
https://i.imgur.com/Im6jRQO.png

Once rendered you will be able hook the Emission to blur/ glare nodes (or any combination) and mix them with the Combined pass again.

[The Renderer]

You can also try simply fiddling with the settings of the glare node. Usually using fog glow and lowering the threshold so only the bright lights are affected works fine. Play with the other sliders as well, especially size. Depends on your scene, though, if a lot of your scene is as bright as the light you might need to use the emission pass as Pops explains above.

[RubyBard]

Originally posted by *P0P$*FR3$H3NM3Y3R*:

Yes you can access the Emission Pass in the Compositor directly.
First make sure to Activate at least 'Emission' Pass or all in general.
https://i.imgur.com/Im6jRQO.png

Once rendered you will be able hook the Emission to blur/ glare nodes (or any combination) and mix them with the Combined pass again.

Am I doing this wrong? Now it shows during compositing but it wont actually show up in the final render.

https://imgur.com/a/zCEfwMJ

[RubyBard]

Ok jk I am just dumb and didn't realize the render waits until its completely finished to add the glare. Thank y'all for your help! :)

[*P0P$*FR3$H3NM3Y3R*]

cool! Glad that helped!