I'm trying my hand at space scenes and decided to do it in steps, first the ship, then the planets, then the area of deep space(nebulas, neutron stars, quasars, pulsars, etc.) then I'll assemble the scene....soooo, got a ship, need some type of engine glow, how do I go about this, tried redial lights in the back but nothing showed bright enough, please help, I'm losing brain cells rapidly here...:) BTW, the ship is one I picked up even before I got Bryce, took it apart and reassambled as you see it, don't know who it belongs to...sorry

redail=radial...oops

postwork with photoshop or similar? or try to play with volumetric materials, remember to set an high value of ambience.

I'm pretty sure that I got something from freestuff at 3D-commune that was simply a 2D pic with alpha channel, already saved as .obp... looks pretty good, but haven't put it to good use, yet, and I'm not at home right now, so I can't show a pic or give a link.. sorry..

Zhann. don't know if this is what you are looking for but These settings work with most metals.

btw the ship is great! and the textures is fantastic

I also put a radial light inside the sphere set at intensity of 100, and this is how it looks.

Forgot to say the light also has a red coloring.

I think I'm losing brain cells too, the metal used is brushed bronze.

Is that the kind of effect you want?.. for this I've used a cone with a fuzzy additive texture.. it works well on sphere too.. try it.

Pidjy's suggestion should work in most cases. You might want to add a light, to give the illusion that the glow casts light on it's surroundings. If you want the glow to look more intense, you have to work with a dodge-layer in Photoshop or PSP or you have to use a dodge-brush to intensify the glow and the falloff. You can use all sorts of textures, but most important settings are volume/fuzzy and additive. If a glow object receives no light (diffusion and specularity both at 0) you can also turn all shadow options off to slightly improve rendertime.

Thanks, everyone I'll try it each way see what happens...

Hmm, pidjy's idea looks like it might make a neat candle flame too :)

"pidjy's idea looks like it might make a neat candle flame too" I second that, tried it as a candle flame and it looks lovely. :) Catlin

Well, here's how I go about making tails for ships, jets, comets, whatever. First off, head on over to the little light selection on the right side. See the square looking spotlight? HOLD CTRL, and click it. Instead of a square, youll get a rounded sort of spot light. It doesnt look like much, but dont worry. Now, hit the little 'e' in the tiny menu bar next to the light source. Now, you can edit it(I have Bryce4, so it will look different from Bryce5 in the light editor, but the options are still there, so Im sure you'll see them) Boost the light power up to 200 or so, and then match the picture in terms of 'Volume Visible Light' and 'Infinate Light'. Now, the Falloff is a matter of opinion. I personally like squared falloff, because it leaves a softer end to it, while Linear fallout has a very long fade, which may be better for your sake. Of course, no falloff makes a solid beam, and ranged makes a little blob of light. Anyhow, it ends up looking rendered in the final picture(Squared Falloff). As I said, you can use it for tons of different things, and you can create them in seconds, which is great too.

Thanks Sparr, no luck with anything yet, I'll try this to...

Wait a second, you arent using the 'Starfield' background, are you? Because if you are, the light effects wont show at all, or will be too dark. To keep things simple, you can just choose black background, and add stars into it.

Well that explains alot....