i'm using bryce 5 and i have a 3d model of text that i would like to have light coming from behind it streaming thru the letters with actual light rays showing. i would like to have everything else black/shadowed, with the only bright being the light. the text model is sitting on a simple black plane, with the sky being black as well. i have alternated between all of the falloff options and a million different position (*slight exageration, lol).

i have tried several tutorials so far with no success including Peter Sharpe's two (not that some of the effect didn't look neat). i am at a loss as to what i am doing wrong where this effect is not working. =/

Gotta really crank up the spotlight intensity in most cases when you are using straight black. AgentSmith

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/~bryce/agent_volume.zip

Like this? Strangely enough I had just made this a couple days ago. Basiaclly, I suck at making volumetrics work the way I want, WHEN I want. So, I make them work in little scenes then later I just merge the big scene I'm working on with this little one. Anyway, point is if you want this Bryce 5 scene file you (or anyone else) can download it at the link given.(92kb) Maybe this will help you figure out how to make it work. *note: I have the quality of the volume material cranked up to 75, if you want, reduce it it increase render speeds, but it will affect how the volume material looks. AgentSmith

Thanks for the volume material AS could come in handy. What would we do without you............. ;) Cat

The Vue members would strap you down and torture you all with 4 pane, non-track ball GUI's.... ;oD (j/k) AS

what would be the best material to apply? the white seems to show up the best but thats not the look i was going for. i wanted it to be more of a black background, black 3d item and light streaming from behind it toward the viewer, or towards the ground. maybe like a paused version of that flash technique called Ray of Light.

Then you're going to have to keep playing/tweaking the angles of the volume and camera until the camera can "see" the rays to the point of being able to recognize the outline of the letters. AgentSmith