Small lens flares on point lights can give the illusion of volumetrics. I often use them on candle flames. A group of point lights to soften the shadows is a good idea. You can also use mapped shadows instead of raytraced shadows, and a softness of about 5' on the light. Mapped shadows consume resources, however. Quicker to render, but they use more memory, can be a problem when rendering complicated scenes. Without global illumination, objects in shadow tend to look very "flat". With GI, they look much, much better. Global Radiosity tends to be a tad better than GI, but usually not worth the extra render time.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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