Hi I've been playing around with the poser lights, I want to produce a volumetric light effect in an underwater scene. I am using fog which creates quite a good effect but what I thorght I'd try was a spotlight with an object infront which I have applied a trans map to let some light show through, a bit like the coloured plastic/stencils they use in film and theatre (sorry can't think of the real name of these) problems I have are a) I can't get the prop to stay with the light if I move it. and more importantly the light doesn't seem to penatrate through the prop. What am I doing wrong and any suggestions welcome. thanks Dave

I applied a transmap to a simple square prop, and set the min/max transparency settings to 100%. Then I parented the square to the spotlight, so that it moves with the light.

By the way, that isn't the ground plane in my images. It's another square prop, with the ground-plane texture applied to it. For some strange reason, my ground plane won't properly display the shadows of transparent objects. As far as it's concerned, they're always opaque. So I have to create my own ground prop if I want the shadows (or lack thereof) to show properly.

Hi Thanks L'l Dragon thats exactly what I wanted the thing with the ground plane explains why the shadows didn't appear to work. The parenting I'll have to try again but i'm sure that's what I did. Thanks for your help Dave

That is so cool, I am going to have to try that...Sharen