Illuminated tent at night tips?

[caspian]

I'd appreciate any advice to help light this little scene I'm working on. It's a night time scene illuminated by the light inside a tent. (image attached with reference). I have a lot more work on the tent model to do but I want to understand how I might make the glow look better. Looking at my own tent the material is a tiny but transparent, so I thought maybe the material needs to be a fraction transparent — but that just makes it look strange! And I can't really get the glowyness happening with a regular corona light (area or object). Here, I set the light to not be directly visible which isn't quite how think it should be.
— any tips gratefully received! Many thanks

[Cinemike]

What you are looking for is not transparency but translucency. To activate it, create a physical material and in its General tab, switch on "Thin Shell" and activate the translucency tab. It's the shine-through effect you have with lamp shades, leaves or  tent fabric.
Have something inside the tent you create shadows and use a shape for the light that resembles a lamp. It should be left visible, but translucency will make it look realistic enough.

HTH
Michael

[romullus]

Someone has generously shared a nice tent model recently. You may want to use it for your project and say thanks to the author. https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=35055.0

[Cinemike]

Someone has generously shared a nice tent model recently. You may want to use it for your project and say thanks to the author. https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=35055.0

It's even (a tiny bit) nicer than the great six-polys model I used for my sample scene.

Thx for the link!

[caspian]

Thanks Cinemike! That's a solid piece of advice. TBH I didn't really understand the difference between the transparency and translucency so just googled it. And now I understand. Brilliant.
I always thought 'thin shell' was for thin glass materials, but that's obviously another gap in my knowledge.