U g I n f o r d e s I g n e r s

V-Ray for SketchUp
38

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Self-illuminated material can make the object become a lightsource itself. It does not limit to a certain 
shape like a regular light type does. Every part of the object can be illuminated and used as a lightsource. 
Self-illuminated material is perfect to create objects like: light ball, light tube, light shade, stylish lighting, 
cold light and lit screen. However, emissive materials should not be used as the primary lighting for a scene
Open the Emissive menu. Default set the color to white,
intensity
to
1 
and
Transparency
color
to
black
. 
Click
on
Material Preview and you will see a completely white material ball. Render it and you 
will get the image like the one on the right.
Open file: 
and we are going to show you how to create a self-
illuminated material. Select the green chair on the right. Right-click on object and select V-Ray for 
SketchUp> Edit Material to open the Material editor dialog box.
. Click on the + next to the Chair_Green to pull down the layers. Right click on Emissive Layers and 
select Add new layer. You will see the new Emissive layer added to the right side.
Chairs-Emissive-Original.skp 
Add Emissive Layer
1
Emissive Materials
V-Ray for SketchUp
39
If you are using a physical camera in your scene, you may notice that your light emitting materials render 
black or darker than expected. This is because the physical camera reacts differently to light than a 
regular camera does. Because of this you may have to make your light emitting materials significantly 
brighter in order to be rendered by the physical camera.

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10
5.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Intensity
Diffuse Color R155, G155, B155
Diffuse Transparency R0, G0, B0
Emissive Color R200, G161, B82
Emissive Transparency R100, G100, B100
Adjust the color
Default set the color to white. Click on the color box to change to a different color. Notice that if the 
setting of the Intensity is too high, the color of the object itself will become close to white. Only the 
light come out from this self-illuminated object will carry the correct color. So we recommend you not 
to use this as a normal lightsource. Just make it as a decorative object in the scene. 
Please refer to below image chart for results of various Emissive Intensities. By controlling the degree 
of Transparency under the Emissive Color, you can still keep the diffuse color of the object. For 
example, when the Intensity is higher than 2, the diffuse color is washed out and become white.