Okay, I'm working on a scene for a story of mine in Bryce. I made some figures in Poser and brought 'em in. This is them in the default sky. The actual scene will be the next post. The sword's material is hard glass.

This is the sky I'll be using, with the addition of a shin-high cloud plane. Now for my question: How do I make their sowrds (see prev. post, completely invisible here) shine like light? I've tried placing spots behind 'em, in front of them, but they won't cast light just on the swords, it spreads everywhere.

do you want a light sword (like a light saber of Star Wars) or do you want only the glass swords to be visible? In the second case try a light from behind (of behind and a bit on theyr right) the "angels" it may not disturb the darkness of the carachter but will light the swords, maybe change also a bit the ampience of the material of the swords. hope it works bye

Add ambience like vasquez said, and also some diffusion too Both are set to 0 in the default galss presets, I reckon. You can also experiment by duping the sword, making the duplicate a hair smaller. It will now appear to have a lighter center. Also you can tweak it by setting the smaller one to be "fuzzy". They wont shed light, nor will they cast shadows, but they'll give the illusion of being made from light.

Thanks guys. Here's what I've got so far. I ran the diffusion up to 100, and kept the ambience at 0. I made a visible volumetric radial light and stuck it inside the swords, and tinkered with the falloff, etc.

Hey, now everyone is really bright. I liked the somber dark colors of the second render better. You might try lighting the swords, doing a render, then doing an object mask. Cut the lights down to about 20% and do a regular render. Keeping some light on the swords will make the figures and clothes look like they're picking up some light from them. Open your lighted render in paintshop or photoshop and use the object mask to cut and paste the glowing swords into the lower lighted render. You could also do a fully lighted render and remove everything but the swords. You could kick up the haze in the atmosphere and make a halo around the light in the swords. Then just paste the lighted image over the regular at around 50% transparency.

Try using a ranged falloff for the sword lights, that way the swords and only a small area around them will be lit and you'll keep the dark mood in the second render above. Also try duplicating the sword make it slightly bigger and add the green lit material in the special effects presets and change the colors.

Where did u get the.. wings, swords and the green robe things from??? free stuff? if so what are thier names so i can search for em? if from a site plz list the site.

Just make the sword material addtive and highly specular. You can also select a fuzzy material and make it additive and it will soften the edges.

Here's a glowing blade I made using 3 blades. The center is white additive/fuzzy. The second Is blue additive fuzzy, and the third is the same but more fuzzy and less bright. It has a streached radial light with a falloff of 25 so it only shines when it gets really close to things, and the closer they get the brughter it glows-but it only gets really bright if they are almost touching. Have fun!!! Go to http://www.renderring.com/lightblade.zip to download.

By the way, that is a straight bryce render of the actual blade.

The wings are Anton's Bird Wings. I assume they're freeware. I don't know where from. They were packaged with the Classic Angel from www.Animotions.com. I applied a modified "jetstream texture" to them. THe sword is Palladium17's Crusader Sword (an amzing prop) from Free Stuff here, and the robes are shadowcat's Robe for Michael from Free Stuff here without chests, necks, arms, and a scaled down abdomen. The belts are, as far as I know, made by John Malis and worn by many of his male characters. THe figures themselves are Drax's Musclebound Dork.