The great photographer Ansel Adams once quipped that, while a picture is captured in a camera, it is made in a darkroom. The compositor is the ultimate “digital darkroom.”

Thank you all for your incredibly timely responses. I’veused the glowing 3.5mm cylinder in previous animations successfully. In the 2new animations i’m working on; if i go that route i’ll have to create, animateover 280 individually edited cylinders, each with separate tapered angles. Doyou have any information about “Compositing” a solution? I agree withthe side of a real laser not being visible. I’d rather introduce a very lightmist in the beam path to make it visible. Is this possible using a largelytransparent particle field. Making the actual realistic beam that would reflectvisible will save me literally days of animating… THANK YOU ALL FOR YOURASSITANCE!!!

“Now, the world is your oyster.” You create another blend-file which uses the node-based compositor to merge the laser-beam into the shot. But… you can, in the process, do anything-you-want to and with this stream of digital information. (It is a digital computer, after all …) You can add noise to it (producing the effect of “passing through clouds”), color it any way you like, even animate that color. You can fine-tune the effect of alpha, and choose among a dozen choices of exactly how to combine that laser-beam with the rest of the shot. You can “tweak” the laser-beam without re-rendering anything else, and vice-versa.

If i have to go the “glowing cylinder” route. Which I’ve used successfully in previous animations; I’ll have to create about 280 cylinders. Each with individually edited separate angled ends to show accurate reflections off a changing mirror. Could you PLEASE explain further the “Compositing” solution. I’d also rather just use a small cloud of mist in the area to make the more realist beam visible. In addition, I still can’t even get to the spot from the spotlight to render on a reflective surface. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR TIMELY RESPONSES!! Greatly appreciate all further comments!!

“The compositing approach” would involve you creating a separate animated sequence in which the output consists of just the laser-beam, with its corresponding alpha-mask, in an otherwise absolutely-empty frame. (There is no “world” color, no nothing in the frame at all, except that laser-beam.

In real life you see the laser beam only if it passes thru dust/mist/vapour or something of that kind; otherwise the only thing you see is a small, painfully luminous dot on the place where the beam hits an object. Any more intimate contact between you and the laser preludes to the acquisition of an eyepatch and (optionally) a cursing parrot.

Hi Everyone, I’m trying to create a realistic “laser” beam. I’ve just downloaded Blender 2.64. Discovered, happily that it does support the “spotlight”. In Cycles I reduced the cone to 1degree. Reduced the size of the lamp. Then discovered that the light is not rendering at all. The strength is at maximum. The color is Red 10.0 against a dim white background. I used a mixer of Emission strength 1,000 and Glossy roughness 0.0. I hnhave cycled through every kind of lamp and the only one i can get to render is the area lamp. Which of course, does me NO GOOD at all. PLEASE HELP!.. Ideally i’m trying to create a pure red beam of light that will stay collimated and be 3.5mm in diameter.

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I suggest that you generate a directory full of MultiLayer output files, which will capture the entire numeric data-set produced by this and every other rendering step.

+1 to Richard’s suggestion - it could involve a bit of compositing, but you can probably get a lot more control over the Lazor you’re Firin’ that way