If you cast minor image, could you make a torch or other fire that sheds light as an actual flame of the appropriate size?
If not, why? The very nature of fire is light and heat. I can understand the thing not making heat, but without light, it isn't fire.
If so, how large could you make this flame? Could you make a house appear to be ablaze?
How would this interact with creatures using the stealth skill?
I would say yes; nothing in the spell description states otherwise.
Also, Dancing Lights is a 0 level spell; it seems perfectly reasonable to me to allow a 1st level spell to emulate or improve upon a cantrip.
the fire would appear to be as large as you can make it (four 10-ft cubes + one 10-ft cube per level). so if you have a sufficiently high CL, yeah you could make a house appear to be on fire.
As soon as anyone gets remotely close and realizes there's no heat, jig is up however.
as for Stealth, it would work as any other light source. theoretically you could hide INSIDE the flame (if it is big enough), however.
Would the light given off have to be included in the area calculation? I would think so.
No, you can't use illusions to create actual light. You can make the area around the illusions look as if it was lit at the time you cast the spell, but it won't change realistically once something moves. The shadows your "light" generates will be static.
There are a few dozen threads on this issue, and I think that's the consensus.
By the way, Dancing Lights isn't an illusion. It's evocation.
Why can't it? Because of this line from Figments:
Because figments and glamers are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. Figments and glamers cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements.
Glamers can though.
So is merely looking at an illusion of light interacting with it? Does looking at it while something walks through it count?
Say you created a campfire and lit the area appropriately for the spell description, and then someone/thing walks through that area. On-lookers get a save, correct?
What would this look like?
I can only imagine that seeing light work in a way it never does would be reason for a will save, although usually you need a standard action to interact with something.
Could you use illusion magic to create an effect similar to darkness?
Not real darkness, but same effect to those who fail to disbelieve.
No, silent image can't duplicate real effects like light and darkness (which are evocations). But you can use figments to do other things that might provide similar effects. For example, you could make an illusory big curtain drop from the ceiling, providing 100% concealment to those behind it (such as the caster.)
If you want to use illusion magic to create the same effect as a darkness spell, I would suggest shadow evocation.
Cheapy the quotation seems to contradict your very next sentence:
Because figments and glamers are unreal,
Glamers can though.
The quotations says exactly the same thing for figments and glamers. I suppose you meant illusions that aren't figments or glamors.
Edit: So you can fill the area completly with black snow, which has pretty much the same effect as darkness for everyone in it? (you get a save of course)
So by RAW it's a standard action. Seems kind of a clunky system for illusions.
None of this is relevant to anything I'm playing or DMing, but a roommate was talking about illusions the other night in regards to NPCs and it got me wondering about how they could either be easily abused or useless.
Seems like it would take multiple spells to make any illusory effects believable.
Could a strategically placed dancing lights spell make the minor image "shed" light normally, so that shadows are cast as they should be?
Oh yeah, I may have been thinking shadows, not glamers.
@cheapy forgot Dancing Lights was evocation ...
@blackbloodtroll correct.
earlier posts: yeah, the radius of "light" would have to be confined to the limits of the spell.
@Foghammer: illusions are really powerful when combined with other effects that are NOT illusions, too; either causing paranoia or complacency.