Create a backlit computer screen in Advanced 3D comp?

[Snaileb]

I thought surely this must be covered somewhere, but after a good bit of searching, I still haven't found what I'm looking for... 

I have a 3D comp in After effects using the Advanced 3D renderer. I have a .glb model of a desktop computer. Laid carefully onto it, I have a precomp with the contents of that computer screen. 

Is there a way to make it look as if there is light emanating from the computer screen itself, instead of having a light in the scene pointed towards the computer and messing with the materials settings on the precomp to try and get the computer screen to look like it is lit decently? 

I was reading a bit about EXR files and HDRI lights, but I feel like it's a bit over my head and I'm not sure if you could use that to position a "light" within a 3D composition or if it sort of wraps all the way around the comp...

[Shebbe · Accepted solution]

Hey there,

In what sense do you mean "emit light"? 

In the layer's Material Options you can disable Casts/Accepts Shadows and Accepts Lights. This will make the comp render the color information 'flat' as is which may be what you're looking for. 

If you were talking about the screen casting light into the scene this is not possible since AE does not have materials with emmisive properties nor do they have area lights.

For general esthetic purposes only you can try faking it with some glows or other trickery as post effects.

[Snaileb]

Got it, thank you. Yes, I think some sort of area light is what I was hoping for. I thought would be a pretty common use case — mocking up some sort of device with a LED screen — so I was a bit surprised that I wasn't really finding tutorial examples of people creating something like this.