Bloodsong, Varian and anybody else who may be interested, this is my technique. One thing to bear in mind, it takes a lot of fiddling to get just right. Its a case of change a setting, render preview, change a setting, render preview and so on. The above image took approx 40 mins to get looking ok. Please remember, this is only one method, it is not a rule. I`m sure someone else may find a better or quicker option. If you do please post. * I remove all volumetric settings from the sunlight. I add a quadratic spotlight to the scene (better falloff) and turn on volumetric and gel for the light. Because of the spotlight bug which renders a horrible black area if the camera is directly facing the light, the spotlight has to be very carefully placed. Normally I place near the top and to the side of the object/s to receive the rays. In the above scene the light was placed to the left of the eagles wing and swiveled to the right. * To add the delicate rays seen above, I have found the image needs to be fairly dark.I could not achieve the same effect with the original atmosphere settings. So i tend to lower the various sky/Sun settings to first darken the image. You do not need to change by huge amounts, just gentle lowering of exposure, and then play with light balance and ambient light, again using small adjustments. Rays can be achieved in light sunny scenes, but do not look as dramatic. * I then add a bitmap gel to the Quadratic spotlight. Any bitmap will do, but i find a black and white or greyscale pattern works best. Its a case of experimenting here. Try the various bitmaps that come with Vue to see what effect they have. In the eagle scene i used one called "Wcaustic.bmp" (its a greyscale bitmap of a caustics type pattern). * Next I play with the intensity of the volumetric light setting, turning it up full and keeping an eye on the main camera preview. I gradually lower this until pleasing looking rays start to appear. You may also need to adjust the spotlights power, falloff and spread to achieve pleasing results. For the final render i boost the spotlights volumetric quality bost setting to 2 or 3 to achieve a better rendered image. The rays tend to look too grainy if the setting is left on none. Well, thats about it. To sum up, it takes about five mins to set up the objects and light and then loads of time playing with the atmosphere and spotlight settings. Hope this small post, points you in the right direction. I intend to publish my own website soon, with a gallery of my artwork and maybe some tutorials for Vue and other 3D packages. I will post the address when its ready. All the best Capt Morgan