Best Method or Product to Produce Spectacular LASER Light Effects

Fauvist

What's the Best Method or Product to Produce Spectacular LASER Light Effects?  I use the Iray render engine.

Thanks!

Gordig

You could try an extremely tight spotlight with volumetrics for a more physically-accurate laser, or a long cylinder with an emissive material for a simpler approach.

nemesis10

Ah,  I have strong opinions on this; I used to have to use equipment with lasers in them in a past career life.  For something movie like, something like https://www.daz3d.com/sy-energy-beams-iray would do:

If you upped the emission to produce a brighter beam, added a granular texture and changed the color to a deep red, you would have a very credible helium neon laser.  If you want something more fanciful,  the technique used to make lightsabers would work which is to encase the tube primitive with the bright light with a tube tht has a diffuse granular texture with some transparency and less bright emission:

Astraffel

(sorry if I am too novice to help)

My current method is using these two together:

https://www.daz3d.com/horror-and-action-lights-for-figures-and-vehicles

https://www.daz3d.com/iray-light-volume-kit

The HAL set has laser presets. While personally I'm getting mixed results, I'm not very experienced with volumetric lighting in Daz, and I'm likely doing things incorrectly. I would note where the product description says:

Due to how thin the lasers beams are, they will not show in your render until it is near completion. 

The main reason I wanted the HAL set though was for the lights that have IES profiles automatically setup for easily making realistic flashlight and headlight beams. While there may be better methods and/or products specifically for lasers, I really enjoy the variety of atmospheric presets and options offered by both Marshian and KindredArts.

 

edit: reset the quote block format

FirstBastion

cylinder surface emmisives and bloom.

nemesis10

You definitely can get this effect in Iray.

Fauvist

This is exactly the effect I'm looking to recreate in iray.  Is it possible?

leemoon_c43b45a114

I used the 2 cylinder method last year for my laser beam/heat ray effect.

Before I added some metallic flakes to the outer glow cylinder, I was getting something close to what you're looking for.  In my case, I wanted some crackle/ionization for the beam.

Here's an example of my final beam style:

Lee

 

nemesis10

So, this is a very quick experiment:

First, two emissive cylinders with the inner brighter than the outer and a subtle bloom effect.  I suspect from the image provided, the artist rendered a colored beam with bloom and inner cylinder not visible, rendered again with inner cylinder on, outer cylinder off, and no bloom, finished with a little photoshop layer work (overlay)

Next is a single cylinder with bloom which does come pretty close.