Emitting Light from Object I'm trying to create a semi-transparent wrapper around a light source. This could be gems, brightly lit console buttons, magical semi-transparent glowing fruits, whatever.

Anywho, I tried the approach outlined in another Stack Exchange question (transparent BSDF wrapped around an emission source), but the effect looks quite different from theirs. See the image below. I noticed in their example .blend file there was a field labeled "normal" applied to the transparent shader node that doesn't show up on mine. Is there a step I missed?


It should look like this:
The post you linked to is using a translucent shader, you are using a transparent shader.



Transparency vs. Translucency

Transparency simply lets light pass through the object, only changing the color and intensity.  Translucency lets the light through as well, but it scatters the light on the opposite side from which it struck the surface.



Translucency and transparency are the two basic types of transmission, they are akin to diffuse and glossy in terms of reflection.