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Note: although the procedure described below does result in Eevee being used as the renderer, that wasn't intentional. So, not that it really matters, but this isn't a duplicate of the Eevee question, and the answer below telling me to change it to Cycles is correct.

I'm a complete newb. I'm interested in playing with shader nodes, but I'm failing at the first step: if I add an emission material it does not appear to iluminate anything.

Here's what I'm doing:

  1. Create a new project

  2. Delete the default light source, leave the default cube in place

  3. Shift-A -> Mesh -> Plane

  4. Move plane to somewhere above the cube

  5. Go to shading workspace, which displays the shader node editor

  6. Click on the plane

  7. Delete the default "Principled BSDF" node

  8. Add an 'Emission' node

  9. Set the strength to anywhere from 50 to 500000

  10. Connect 'Emission' output to 'Surface' input of the material output node

  11. Render an image

I get this:

enter image description here

I have two questions:

  1. Why is this happening? How can I get the emission surface to illuminate the cube?

  2. Although the render looks like that, the preview looks like this:

enter image description here

On many YouTube videos I have seen people use a preview that looks the same as the finished render, but noisier because it uses less samples. How can I activate that? (I think the answer to the last one is probably "switch the preview renderer to Cycles," but I can't figure out how to do that.)

Here's where the plane is in relation to the cube. It's sort of hard to tell but it's about as far off the ground as the camera is, and from the camera's perspective it's above and to the right of the cube.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ the plane is above the cube right? $\endgroup$
    – The Kalaakaar
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:18
  • $\begingroup$ @TheKalaakaar yes, above and off to one side a bit. I'll edit an image into the question shortly. $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:19
  • $\begingroup$ In Eevee the Emission won't enlight anything, switch to Cycles or use a light $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:22
  • $\begingroup$ @moonboots how do I do that? I asked how to switch it to cycles in the question. $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:23
  • $\begingroup$ Just choose cycles instead of Eevee in the render properties $\endgroup$
    – The Kalaakaar
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:25

2 Answers 2

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In Eevee the Emission won't enlight anything, switch to Cycles or use a light.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Great, that works for the render output. My only other question is, how do I switch the preview window to use cycles as well? $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:26
  • $\begingroup$ @N.Virgo that is not possible $\endgroup$
    – The Kalaakaar
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:26
  • $\begingroup$ @TheKalaakaar hmm, I must be asking the wrong question. In many YouTube videos I've seen people using a realtime preview that looks like the cycles output only noisier, because it uses less samples. I'm asking how to activate that, so I can preview the effect of the emission surface. $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:28
  • $\begingroup$ @TheKalaakaar ah, I've got it. At the top right of the preview window there is a row of icons that look like spheres, one of which does what I was asking for. $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:31
  • $\begingroup$ @N.Virgo you must be talking about the denoising funtionality. This is available in cycles right below the sampling settings. $\endgroup$
    – The Kalaakaar
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 9:32
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So basically object emisison doesn't work in Eevee

You can use object emission, but you will have to use probes for that. But believe me, if it's just a simple scene, you are better off using cycles. Because baking the probes can be a little bit annoying to have to wait for. This is beacuse every time you change the locaion of something, you will have to bake it again to recalculate according to the new lighting conditions.

Here I have set up an irradiance volume to show what light probes do. enter image description here

enter image description here

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