I need help with 3D studio MAX
 

I need to make lightning but cant find a good way to do it.Any ideas are aappreciated.Thanks

Search for some tutorials on Google. There are tons of them. 3DCafe, The 3D Studio, a whole bunch. They're everywhere.

Re: I need help with 3D studio MAX
 

Could you be a little more specific? By lighting, do you mean lighing to illuminate a scene, lighting like an engine glow or a lightsaber light, etc.

Lemme know and I'll see how I can help!

lighting is a very broad and very complex situation...you need to be very sepcific as to what the scene is trying to accomplish (setting,light sources, etc) and let us know....we can't help you wihtout that info.

I dont want lighting i need lightning as in the thunderstorm.I checked the plug-ins but we cant get them.Is there any other way?

I saw an interesting tutorial about creating a skeleton in the shape of the bolt that you want and making it glow. I don't know the specifics though sorry. Google hunt for Lightning Skeleton 3dsmax

OOoooo, ::smacks self across head:: duh, sorry, gotcha.

There is a digimation plugin that can do lightning for you. Ironically, its called Digimation Lightning. It allows you to select two objects and create a lightning bolt between them.

You could also use a line also, make it renderable, and have it bounce around from keyframe to keyframe.

In either of these situations, you then need to create a lens effects glow. First, apply a material to the objet. Next, in the material editor, there is a button below the preview spheres, that has a 0 in it, that is the effets ID button. Switch that to Effects ID 1. Now, go to Render>Effects. Click add... and then add a lens effect.
You see here you need to add the GLOW from the list on the left to the list on the right. Once you do that, scroll down to the bottom, and where it says Material ID, check that box and make sure its set for 1.

The result of this should end up being that the object that you applied the material to will now glow. The other settings you might want to adjust (lower most likely) would be next to the options tab, in the parameters tab. Adjust the size to make the glow smaller and more dense, more like lightNing...heh.

Okay, if i missed anything, sorry..im in the middle of working on our animation..heh, lemme know if i did! Later yall