I am trying to render an image of a Jedi. The problem is, when I boost the render to include raytracing, it makes the lightsaber look square. Is it possible to disable the raytracing on just the lightsaber? I have a spotlight pointed directly at it. Could I do something with that light to stop the raytracing? I don't really understand the whole raytracing concept yet, so I don't know how to work around this. I want to boost the render, and the shadows look better when I ramp it up, but a square lightsaber looks just plain silly. Thanks in advance!

I have a feeling your problem isn't raytracing, but instead the "smooth polygons" option. Disable it for the lightsaber by going to the parameter dials palette for the lightsaber, then click on the "properties" tab, and remove the checkmark for "Smooth polygons". Then try a render to see if that helped. PS: you can also disable raytracing for that specific object by unchecking "Visible in Raytracing" in the same location.

Thanks for the reply maxxxmodelz, but I guess that wasn't it. I disabled smooth polygons, visible in raytracing, even cast shadows, and it is still a rectangle. I figure it has something to do with raytracing because if I drop the render setting one tick below enabling raytracing the blade renders perfectly, even with all of those options left on.

You can see the difference in the attached image. The one on the left is with the first option to raytrace. The one next to it is without raytracing enabled in the firefly engine.

It looks like the blade is made using a transparency map and some other setting is affecting it and making the transparency not work properly.

I was pretty sure it was a smoothing issue - the help files call it 'balooning'. But that shouldn't be limited to a raytraced render, I think it would happen anyway. If this problem only kicks in when raytracing kicks in perhaps there's a displacement map causing it?

Where did you get the lightsabre? I know that at least one available uses a transmap for the blade.

Also, if you can take a screencap of the green material used on the lightsabre, it might help.