# Painted light box sign effect

**URL:** https://discourse.threejs.org/t/painted-light-box-sign-effect/82442
**Category:** Questions
**Tags:** lights, textures, materials
**Created:** [May 12, 2025, 5:29pm UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/painted-light-box-sign-effect/82442 "2025-05-12T17:29:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![leemartin](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.threejs.org/leemartin/32/45146_2.png) [@leemartin](https://discourse.threejs.org/u/leemartin)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2025, 5:29pm UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/painted-light-box-sign-effect/82442/1 "2025-05-12T17:29:49Z")

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Bit of a n00b material/texture/lighting question here but I’m wondering how you might approach the creation of a light box sign object.

 ![lightbox](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/threejs/original/3X/2/4/241654860b3f9522bf5f7817182120641ef03085.jpeg)

Basically, I’d like a “painted” plane which is opaque but allows light to shine through. I figure I can fake this with two textures but I was curious if there was a specific material setup which could be combined with a light to recreate the effect. Thanks!

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### Author: ![prisoner849](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.threejs.org/prisoner849/32/535_2.png) [@prisoner849](https://discourse.threejs.org/u/prisoner849)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2025, 9:25pm UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/painted-light-box-sign-effect/82442/2 "2025-05-12T21:25:11Z")

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Not exactly what you’re looking for, but something related and funky:

 ![изображение](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/threejs/original/3X/5/c/5c35bfcde369e9269e14551611276e2b659bc38e.png)

Demo: [https://codepen.io/prisoner849/full/RNNEpox](https://codepen.io/prisoner849/full/RNNEpox)

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### Author: ![manthrax](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.threejs.org/manthrax/32/2596_2.png) [@manthrax](https://discourse.threejs.org/u/manthrax)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2025, 11:49pm UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/painted-light-box-sign-effect/82442/3 "2025-05-12T23:49:28Z")

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There is an “emissive” and/or “emissiveMap” field on StandardMaterial which you might be able to use to get a lighting effect on the image part of the signage, but that won’t automatically contribute the light to the other parts of the scene, only on the mesh with the emissive on it.  
Sometimes you can fake the spillover using a bloom post process..

> **[three.js examples](https://threejs.org/examples/?q=unrea#webgl_postprocessing_unreal_bloom)**

or by clever positioning of an additional light or two.