Hello, I am trying to create a nice blue glow from a white light. The light is a tube shape with Anything Glows applied to generate the actual light, and I tried applying an Aura to the tube shape, but "Aura" is kinda flakey right now (similar to what Light Cone used to be in the past) since it is a post effect and creates jaggies around the object it is applied to. Any ideas on a better way to do a nice glow effect around an object? Chucker

Do it in post. In PhotoShop, what I like is creating a duplicate layer set to "screen," using "select by color" or levels command to isolate the bright things, apply a little gaussian blur to that and adjust the layer's visibility to suit. I hadn't had a similar problem with Aura the one or two times I tried it, tho. Check if you can ramp up the "Quality" on the effect -- I think there's a slider.

Hey Chucker, Doing post in Photoshop is a good way to handle still images as Nomuse notes. However, one of the tricks I pull out of the bag is to use Carrara's Light Sphere. Aura is problematic for one main reason - it's a post render effect in Carrara and that means that it doesn't show up through transparency or in reflections and also ends up with weird jaggies sometimes. In the sample above I've embedded two bulb lights in the fixture with the Light Sphere effect enabled. This way, the lights remain hidden and don't show up as those annoying spots on reflective surfaces. Additionallly, the Light Spheres render around the modeled light and show up in the reflections on the walls and floor since it's an actual render-time effect. For simple glows, post render in Photoshop or PSP is faster because you don't have to tweak the Carrara scene. But for more complex requirements or animations, the Light Sphere is a nice alternative. Mark

Thanks guys... normally I would do post work in PS, but this is for an animation.  I've always used Light Sphere in the past for other light glows, but since Anything Glows does offer that option I wasn't sure how to pull it off in this situation.  Mark, I just tried your idea very quickly here at work in a primitive shape and I think your solution will work perfect.  I'll apply it to my actual scene when I get home.  I didn't know you could put the bulb inside an object... I just assumed it was like Lense Flare where you had to have the hotpoint visible to see the effect.  Thanks for the help!

Chucker