The letters were created in the spline modeler. I built each letter, then duplicated them and added a second edge to to the duplicate (and compounded it) to make the letter edges.

The atmospheric effect is done by using a plane which is set behind everything. The plane has a simple gradient of transparency and glow. The transparency is 0 at the bottom and 100 at the top. The glow is 100 at the bottom and 0 at the top. I attempted to do this in the original backdrop rendering but the atmospheric gradient became too banded when it is rendered the second time for the final. The image shown here is a jpg. A png format reduces the banding significantly.

-Kix