Add a Volume Light effect to the Environment: For this we use the Environme nt settings. But say we want more say we want the beam as well. This is good for the typical "forehead shot," in which someone has got a highpowered rifle aimed at them, and there is no sign of the laser other than the little red dot. Once rendered, the laser's effect should look something like this (c.). If you don't, only the laser will be lighting things up and it only illuminates a very small area.
3D Studio uses default lights for new scenes, but once you add one light (as you have with the laser), the default lights are turned off and you must add your own to light the scene. (c.)You'll want to add lights to the scene. And setting the multiplier higher will give the laser its characteristic blaze-a laser's source and reflection are much brighter than your average light. (b.) Since a laser is generally recognizable in its red wavelength (other laser hues exist), I used red for the color of the light. The light should be set to a narrow beam. Luckily 3DS offers the direct light (b.)-its beam extends parallel, unlike the spotlight. Even if we squeeze the cone down to a very tight angle, the spotlight will never realistically represent a laser beam (a.). The ideal laser will never "cone out" the way 3DS MAX's The idea of a laser in the real world is that light particles/waves leave an emitter (a.) in such a tight, linear beam that it will stay virtually parallel for an extremely long distance. Instead of building the laser using a geometric model, trying to map it in different and clever ways, we'll simply use a beam of light like a real laser.
The following is a very basic tutorial on how to create a realistic laser for use in your 3DS MAX scenes. If you would like to just limit them to a certain place in your scene use an atmoshpereic apperatus in the helpers rollout. These clouds appear to be real without adding any geometry to your scene. You can add ground and whatever else you would like to the scene. Be patient because this is very processor intensive. Noise threshold high =1 noise threshold low =.2 uniformity =0 levels =6 size =40 wind = front phase =0 strength =0 Select the camera view and render. Density 40 Step size 4 Max steps 100 Select fog background Select fractal noise. Step 4: In the Render enviroment select add volume fog. Tilt the camera so that it has the inside of the sphere in it's view. Step 3: Set up a camera inside and the sphere. Select boolean then pick copy and select the inner hemisphere. Step 2: Next boolean the spheres together. Move the inner sphere so it is offset with the outer sphere. 3dsmax will ask you if you want to clone the object, select copy and click ok. Scale the sphere down 10% while holding shift. Make a hemisphere with a radius of 50 and 16 segments. For my example I will use a booleaned sphere. For the renderer to know when and where to stop rendering you must create a backdrop. Step 1: For volume clouds to work you must first define the limits of the scene. This file can be downloaded at the bottom of the page. Volume clouds are processor intensive when rendering. After you are through with this tutorial you will know how to create realistic clouds with volume fog.