Alright. I'm trying to do a seemingly easy scene. Stormy skies, dark, big clouds, night time. And a few flashes of lightning here and there which light up patches of clouds, and/or elements in the scene. Any ideas? I've been tinkering alot and can't get it. Tried a volumetric rectangle above the camera, but the light doesn't cast on it, and it casts on the ground which i don't really want. I'm a little stumped. Thanks! Greg

Well, it all depends on how much you want Bryce to do for you. You could make/scan/download an image of lightning and use it as a picture object while casting a spotlight (square, normal, or octogaonal) into the clouds where you want the lightning to shoot from/at (lightning usually shoots up from the ground not down from the sky). I'm not sure using objects with Light and Additive clicked on in the materials, would work all that well but it's another posibility also. OR You could just render your image and do some retouching in Photoshop or whatever paint program you have. This is actually my preferred choice as you tend to have more control. If you use Photoshop, I'd go with the airbrush, choose a fairly thin sized brush with the lighten option on and start from there. Then all you have to do is gradually increase the size of your brush as you repeatedly go over the streak. It's important to keep the opacity level for the brush at a low level to start and don't increase it as you go. This should give you a nice lightning bolt. This could also be done with layers but the way I described should work with almost all current paint programs. I can upload an example if you want (which you can use in your image if you like.) I hope this helps.

As someone who spends most of my time illustrating in the Highlander universe, I've done lightning about every and anyway it can be done. I strongly advise post production with Alien Xenograph FX.

The problem is, I'd like to do an animation of it. Not just a picture. So post production wouldn't really be an option would it? Thanks Greg

see my site http://www.brycetech.com/ there are clouds rain (and how to do it) and lightning bolts for download there good luck BT