How to create a Light Tube with GI Maya?

[kanooshka]

The technique you want to use would depend on what type of rendering this is for. But this is the technique for creating cylindrical lights that emit photons.

To physically create the light you're describing you can create an area light and under the mental ray options for the light check off use light shape and then change the shape to a cylinder. This would be physically correct but it's also very render intensive if you have lots of these. If this object is the center of attention I'd recommend using this technique. If it's off screen, I wouldn't bother with this and use either a straight area light or spotlight. As for GI, you can enable photons as you would with any other light source.

[fxdfp]

I would agree with Kanooshka for sure if it's centered or focused in camera. Personally I would use a surface shader with a glow on it and a point light with mental ray shadows and decay to recreate this. Area lights tend to increase render times drastically as point lights are the opposite.

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