Volume light not working

[zimbamboofie]

Whenever I use a volume light and render it, it doesnt work. I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I have been playing with the attributes, but that doesn't seem to help much. I really want to use volume light because I want to make planets light up. If anyone has any info on this, please help.

[drblacksnake]

Have You read manual on how to make volume lights work?
If not, can You name a reason why should others read it if YOU have a problem?
If yes, why dont You describe You "miss" in detail.. it is really annoying, broing, pointless, stupid, time-consuming, etc etc etc, to explain things once did in manual.

Theres no reason for playing with attributes if you do not understand what they do.

[zimbamboofie]

The thing is...I've already looked through the manual...more than one. Nothing is really giving me much help. I was wandering if this is happened to any of you. Please don't be a jerk about it because I already tried looking through the manual. Hopefully someone can help.

[joojaa]

more than one?

[zimbamboofie]

The second one wasn't really a manual, it was more of a tutoral book, which kinda behaves like a manual. Anyway, itd be great if someone would help.

[joojaa]

Well since we dont know what you allready have done its kindoff impossible.

(NOTE: All of this IS ALLMOST CERTAINLY explained in the help files [wich is THE MANUAL] shipped with maya so you shoudl be able to debugg it with that, if not then your screwed because then NO ONE CAN HELP YOU, besides alias tech support. So you tell me you have read the entire manual chapter on rendering page by page?).

answer following questions atleast

is it for Maya SW render or mental ray?
do youy try to cast the shadows trough something like a window?
Dmap or raytraced shadoows?
what steps did you take to make the volumetric shadow?

[zimbamboofie]

i try rendering it through maya software, hardware, and mental ray and none show up. I have a basic volume light in my scene and that is it. I don't have any specific scene set up, right now, i just want to figure out why volume light isn't working. I don't have any shadows turned on. No shadows...none. Just a simple volume light, unaltered, and a cube, unaltered. The scene actualy says that theres light coming off it, but when its rendered, it doesnt show up.

[mag]

is your object within the volume light?

because it should be..

also i find the the way the ramps work is opposite to the way i expect them to work so perhaps you are having the same problem.. make sure your colour ramp isn't white on the edges and black in the middle for instance

[zimbamboofie]

well, being the clueless idiot i am, i did not realise that I was supposed to have everything inside the volume...i misinterpreted what it meant. Above poster, thank you for helping me realise my mistake.