Texture Lighting in Source

Just started playing around with texture lighting in some custom textures (I'm attempting to make an illuminated sign). According to the Valve Developer Community .rad lighting is "An old method, supported mostly for legacy purposes."

Seems like $selfillum allows for a degree of flexability but doesn't actually emit light. Should I be using this combined with entity based lighting?

Haven't found much info on the matter.

Quote from Defrag

You can also use func_brushes to act as invisible texture lighting sources. The trepids did this to make vending machines illuminate their surroundings realistically.

Sounds interesting Defrag. Any chance you could elaborate on how it's done?