There are a couple ways to go about making visible light. The first is to use a shape to stand in for the beam of light. So if you want a spot light, use a cone. A laser beam, use a cylindar that is stretched for the lenght of the beam. Want a spherical effct, use a sphere. In the volume preset library of the materials library there are some nifty materials that work well for simulating light when applied to shapes. Then to add a little extra realism, place light sources along your shape and assign the same color or material to them. There is also the surface visible and volume visible light options (in the attributes, I think) but the effect is not as nice as the first option, IMHO. Sarah