VOLUME LIGHTING
Ok, so volume light is one of the hot features with MAX. It enables you to create realistuc light effects and create atmosphere in your images. But how do you use it for any good? Take a look at these two images:
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 1 has a normal volume light assigned to it. Nothing special (I assume here, that you know how to use volume light). Density 1.5 and detail set to medium. Figure 2 is the same, but it has noise turned on, to give to appearence of a more varied atmosphere. However, none of these are any good. The first one looks too fake, since no light-cone is soild in real life. The second also looks fake, because it’s like lumps of dust. Now, take a look at this image:
This light-cone has both the previous Volume lights attatched to it. This makes it look like a solid beam of light, but still in a varied environment. So, the key is to use more than one volume light one a light-source. In other words, to achieve a more real volume light, use both a vol. light with noise, and one without. Just make two entries in the atmosphere effect list, and in both, pick your spot for it.
Note that the images here have been made brighter to look good.
