Eureka Light Moment

Stryder87

Ok, so I think I just realized why no changes I was making to the lights in my scene were having any effect. I think I have been labouring under a false idea. What tipped me off was, when I would switch to the Lights & Cameras tab, there would be nothing listed but a single AreaLight - Headlamp Blocker. I couldn't figure out why, if I toggled the Use Scene Lights, there would be some small difference, but, since people would tell me to delete the Headlamp blocker, when I would turn it off, the entire scene would go black. I went into the settings for the Blocker and noticed an intensity slider, so I played with it and, lo and behold, the light in my scene would go up and down in it's entirety.

This led me to ask; what the heck are the lights I thought I had in my scene?? The are called Arealight Plane, but the icon isn't a light, like the blocker is, and they don't show up in the Lights tab. So it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, I misunderstood something from when I was working on my first big scene (Desert Trouble) where it was suggested to me to use those Planes for a panel I wanted to make glow. I thought they were used as lights. Now I think maybe I was wrong. But then that leads to another question:

What are Arealight Panes? How do you use them, and why is there always a Headlamp Blocker loaded in with them when the Plane doesn't seem to be the light, but the blocker is the actual light? I know, from playing and reading in the Daz manual about the headlamp and how it get's toggled in your working viewport through the Use Scene Lights button, but does that mean you need a blocker for each light you load in (which happened with the Planes)? I was told to delete them.

I suspect this means I need to totally redo the lights in my current scene, but at least now I think I may have a better understanding of how this works.

Did I figure out something important? The manual for Daz is pretty outdated and lacks information on a lot of things I've searched for, including the Arealight Plane and how it would be used.

Mattymanx

Area lights are surfaces that emit light.

Their controls are found on the surface tab for the surface its applied to

It should be treated as a surface shader first and then a light.