I'm currently working on a project that needs lightning!

I'm trying to simulate something like lightning skimming across the surface of an object. Does anyone know if there is a plugin for maya that does this? Or does someone know a whole lot more than me (and I'm guessing most of you do ) that could help me out?

Thanks in advance

Rob

here's some basic images from what I got so far:

Just found it under the effects menu, might be back to ask for more tips on it though.

You're in luck! Maya will do lightning for you in an easy and quick way
First choose the two objects you are going to have the lightning travel between by shift-selecting.Look under the Dynamics menuset and you will find Effects, then go to Create Lightning. Now you can either use the channelbox or the attribute editor to change the lightning settings, render and adjust

Darkon

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Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.

You beat me to it, good job!

Darkon

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Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.

You could also draw the general path that you would like the lightning to follow, and simply attach one of the lightning PaintFX brushes to it, and then animate the curve and brush settings to taste

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Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com