[RESOLVED] Lightning Bolts Vol. 1 - can't get it to work, outer glow doesn't appear

katywhite

So I have yet to get the Lightning Bolts Vol. 1 to work. I can render out the inner version of the bolts no problem but the outer parts don't show up. I thought I should be able to just throw the prop in and it should work but it doesn't appear which means the lightning just looks like white lines drawn across my image - very disappointing looking. Even toying with the emmisive settings it didn't appear. It's like it is invisible or something. And given that people have beautiful renders with the lighting bolts in them, I feel like I'm missing something obvious. Can someone please help it's driving me crazy. :(

NorthOf45

I find that the default emission settings are a little dim for lightning, which is usually blinding. The outer has a very low opacity, and, when bright enough, should looks like a bluish halo or outline around the inner. Crank both of the luminance values up by factors of 2 until you get something bright, but not too bright, or else it all just looks white hot. (I found that about 100X will brighten it up nicely with scene-only lighting, i.e., a very dark environment)

Or, drop the exposure value in the Render Settings->Tone mapping. Or both. There is more than one way to get there. The product promos look like they have a little bit of bloom filter, also, which gives that glowing effect.

katywhite

@NorthOf45

Thanks! Looks like it is working now. Just gotta play with the settings to get the look I want. Thank you so much. =)