Hello all
   I am a beginer with Carrara. My question is how do I create laser, and explosion effects  ? Like the phasers, and photon torpedoes from star trek ?
   I think the particle emmiter is what is used. Am I correct ?
                                                                                                              Marc

You have particle immeters in Carrara--including a lot of presets in the Browser.

Specifically in relation to laser effectrs there has been a recent thread here I think. You could try a search of this forum.

a laser beam is invisible in a vacuum, but atmospheric fx can show its path. they sometimes faked it with a glowing tube, but perhaps the thread referred to by bwtr has some way of making a lite source cast an extremely narrow cylindrical ray.

http://forums.polyloop.net/carrara-eng/9804-how-can-i-do.html

Try this thread for Laser info.

A simple cylinder shrunk down in 2 dimensions and extending it in the 3rd. Give it the preset of sub-surface scattering 'Lava Lamp' shader, then tweaking the transparent a bit, then tweaking the color to suit. Adding Anything Glows (included with more recent versions of Carrara,) and setting the Scene to have both a 3D Aura and Glare effects.

Hope this helps! :D

The Carrara file exceeds R'Osity's file size limit otherwise I'd attach it here. If anyone would like a copy, email me your address @ bluetone@verizon.net and I'll send it along! :D