The Intergalactic Teapot - A part of Honki's helpful thread of uselessness.

[Honki]

Hi there kiddies. Let’s learn about volumetric lighting.
This tutorial will cover all of the steps required to reproduce an image similar to the one below.

Once you are comfortable with these techniques, feel free to adapt them to your own projects, and come up with some creative ideas of your own.

Volumetric lighting can be utilised in so many different applications, and whilst not often the focus of a scene, it adds a dramatic effect that can enhance even the most simple scenes.

Software: 3ds Max (Version 8 used in this demonstration, however may be done with any version that supports the Reactor physics engine).
Level: Beginner
Techniques Covered: Poly Modeling; Reactor; Lighting; Post Effects

[Honki]

Begin by creating a sphere with 32 segments.

[Honki]

Add an 'Edit Poly' modifier, and select the 'Poly' sub object level.

[Honki]

If you don't want to do the next couple of steps manually, you can download an awesome maxscript called 'QuickFrag', that I only learned about after writing the tutorial. Thanks for the tip bobi!
Download 'QuickFrag' Here.

If you want to do it manually, follow the next couple of steps.

Begin by selecting a cluster of polys. Try not to make them too big, or too small. 3 or 4 polys should be fine.

Detach these polys using the detach dialogue.
Make sure you uncheck the 'Detach as clone' checkbox. This will ensure that the cluster of selected polys are fully seperated from the sphere.

[Honki]

Continue detaching clusters of polys around the sphere. Be careful not to leave any 'stray' polys anywhere, else we will encounter funny goings on later.

Make sure your selections aren't regular.

I selected and detached the poly clusters almost in the same shapes as those from that old Tetris game.

[Honki]

And again...

[Honki]

Cheers Bobi.

Looks handy, I might have a play with it!

[Honki]

Just had a go.

You're a star, bobi. I'll include it into the tutorial!

[--Strattus--]

Nice one, honky! Though I must ask, would any of these work in V-Ray or Mental Ray?
Cheers!

[Honki]

Should do.

I'll try and post an example of each.

[Honki]

Mental Ray

[Honki]

VRay

[Honki]

I have to say, although I'm not a fan of the Mental Ray renderer, the MR render above definately wins over the VRay. It's Final Gather. It took about an hour just to calculate.

The rendering times for MR and VRay were, 2h 17m and 0h 22m respectively.
And I wouldn't have thought VRay would lose in the quality stakes, but, here you go.

Too bad MR doesn't support lens effects.

[--Strattus--]

So you used the exact same settings, and they worked in Vray and MR? Hmmm, that would be impossible in the past.. I'll make my own experiments then ^^

[Honki]

Originally Posted by --Strattus--

So you used the exact same settings, and they worked in Vray and MR? Hmmm, that would be impossible in the past.. I'll make my own experiments then ^^

Pretty much exactly the same setting throughout.
Obviously the raytrace material doesn't work with VRay, so they were changed to VRay mats.

Bear in mind, Strattus, that the volume lighting is an environmental effect, therefore works in MR and VRay. The blur effect won't work in MR. You'll have to find a workaround. I know later versions of MR have a 'glare' shader, that does the job. I don't know if it's available for Max8 MR though.