Fog lights can be used in a number of ways, from underwater lighting to stained-glasss caustics. This is a simple tutorial to get you started working with fog lighting.

This tutorial requires:

Pixels3D | studio | v3.6 and above

FogLight Shader

First we need a surface on which to fake our fog-lights, start with a cone shape to match the shape of a lights cone. Select Shapes>Cone and then open up Object Info ( cmd-i ) and move the the cone's x position to 20.00 and its y rotation to 90.00. Control>Park it and choose Control>Center and drag the centre of the cone to near the 40.00 on the x axis.

"Centering the Object"

Now it's time to create the light source. Choose Shape>Light and then in Object Info move the light to x position 40.00. Change the Light Type to Spot Light. The Cone's surface now lines up with the Light Cone.

Before we can move or rotate this light in the scene, we need to link the Cone and Light to a Null so they move together. Choose Shape>Null to create a new null object. Move this null in Object Info to 40.00 on the x axis. Now in the Schematic View, select the Light, Cone, and Light Interest. Then shift-cmd-select the Null.

Choose Control>Link/Unlink to link these objects to the Null. Now we can just select the Null and move/rotate it as desired.

Move the Null and Rotate it to something like pictured right. Choose Shapes>Cube and then Control>Scale the Cube so that it encompasses the scene. Don't worry about the white shape from the Light, it isn't pointing the correct direction, but the Cone is.

Now do a Quick Render ( cmd-r ). Notice that the cone matches the shape of the spotlight.

Let's apply the shader to the Cone. Select the Cone only and then load in the Light shader you downloaded into ShaderMaker ( cmd-w ). You may have to fix the fBm node Signed input to false. Its located in the Opacity Input. Now, do a Quick Render, you should get something like pictured on the right.

About everthing has to do with the Cones shader and shape, experiment to get different results. You can also add some colour to the Light using ShaderMaker and, as well can effect the entire look of our Cone.