Volumetric Lighting

davidjones8418

Dear All,

What I am looking to do is to have a volumetric light radiate from a light source in all directions.

This seems to be the obvious product.

https://www.daz3d.com/epic-props-godrays-volumetric-light-for-iray

But I am not sure if it has props that radiate? i.e. that could basically cover the whole scene, with an awesome looking spherical volumetric light in the middle, with beams cut up by objects.

I watched a tutorial but it did not cover dispersive arrays. Is this what dispersive arrays do?

NorthOf45

The props are shortcuts to get the effects, but aren't real atmospheric effects. They can give good results under certain conditions, but are not for every scene. The dispersive props in this product are simply the directional props with the planes in a sort of conical arrangement (to spread out at the bottom). The spread angle can be increased to 180 degrees, but that also spreads the effect kind of thin. Nothing says you can't have more than one, but that complicates things.

Real atmospheric effects can be easily done, but at a rendering cost (it takes time, a lot of time, to get smooth results). There are a couple of products that can set it up (Atmocam and Atmocam 2 for Iray), or you can easily set it up manually. There are some threads in the New User Contests and Events forum that feature Atmosphere (seems to be every October) with plenty of links to tutorials and other resources that help you get those godrays and other effects.

davidjones8418

Thank you, I suspect the atmospheric effect is what I am after then, rather than the cones