Does Daz 4.21 still allow image maps to control emission?

KixiePixie13

I have no idea if this is the right place to post this, so I apologize if this is not the appropriate forum to post this question in. I am still using Daz 4.11, since I just like it and have read that certain things like emission have changed in 4.20 and 4.21 (the biggest thing I saw was ghost lights changing). This has made me very reluctant to upgrade to a newer version of Daz because a lot of the custom FX's for my characters and props for the book series I'm writing rely on image maps to make parts of their skin or parts of the prop glow. (For example, I used a geometry shell to create the effect of one of my character's hands being on fire, so it wasn't just a fire prop, it was both the fire prop and the geometry shell, making it appear like the fire starts on his skin, rather than in mid air if that makes sense lol. And another example is one character's veins glow when his powers activate, as well as when he uses his sword, the sword has words on the blade that glow). I'm concerned that those things will break if I update and I don't have the type of software to model actual objects of those things, like to create a 3D fire effect that's in the shape that I was able to do with the geometry shell and image maps, plus a lot of the props I have from other vendors use glow maps to make parts of the objects glow (ex: a screen, a button, a light, etc) that do not have multiple material zones, so it has to use an image map to work. I know I'm talking a lot, but I'm trying to explain what I'm concerned about in the most detailed way possible, so there's no confusion as to what I'm asking. So can anyone tell me what Daz 4.21 still allows with emission and what doesn't work anymore?... Thank you.

Gordig

Emission still works as before. What has changed is that NVidia has changed the behavior of light relative to opacity to make it more physically accurate, so that ghost lights required a multiplication of luminosity (although I believe they've changed it back). 

Richard Haseltine

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/609556/creating-a-ghost-light-daz-studio-4-21-1-26

Not back, but there are now tools which will yield a similar result - in a more controllable manner.

KixiePixie13

Richard, I've read that, but it's talking about ghost lights, which is not what I'm referring to and it doesn't explain how what I'm asking about works now. I don't want to lose the ability to use image maps to control what glows and what doesn't is basically what I'm worried about. I'm also assuming this means that transparency doesn't work if you have emission turned on anymore either, (for objects other than lights, like FXs)?

Richard Haseltine

The only change in erspect to emission is how it interacts with opacity values - before it ignored them and treated the surface as being fully opaque unless it was fully transparent but now it multiplies the emission by the opacity - if the surface is 100% opaque then emission is unchanged.