In this tutorial, we simulate lightning striking a building.

In order for lightning to hit a building, you first need to have a building in your scene. You can make your own building model, or you can import one from somewhere. In this tutorial, we'll just use a Cone primitive to represent the top of a building. Drag a Cone primitive into your scene.

Next, drag and drop the ThØr icon to where you would like the lightning to originate, for example, above the cone.

Since both the bolt's source and target are centered in the bolt's bounding box, it is easy to align the bolt with the cone. Select the cone first, then shift-select the lighting bolt. Next, choose the Edit>Align function from the Carrara menu. Change the settings to "Align" and "Hotpoint", and make sure that both the X and Y axes are highlighted. Click OK to perform the alignment action.

The bolt's target can be made to touch the building's tip by aligning them along the Z-axis with the Contact option. Without deselecting the Cone or Bolt, choose Edit>Align again. This time, change the settings to "Contact" and "Sides", and highlight only the Z axis. Click OK to perform the alignment action.

The resulting preview in the Assemble room looks like this:

Because the lightning bolt is a facet-based object, it is assigned the default shader when it is created. It's easy to make a shader for the lightning bolt that you just created.

Select the lightning bolt, and go to the Texture room.

Change the object color to white. Change the glow to white. The shader dialog will look something like this:

The shader preview will look something like this:

For a more realistic lightning effect, you can use the 3D Aura filter when you render, to make the lightning bolt glow. In Carrara, go to the Assemble room, and open up the bottom tab. Click on Scene Effects, and open up the right Properties tab.

Click on the Filters button, and then click on the "+" sign to add a filter. Select the 3D Aura filter.

Click on the EDIT button. In the Aura editor, set the Radius to 20, turn distance attenuation ON, and make the Intensity equal to 40%. Now when you render the scene, the bolt will glow with very nice aura!

Since we are currently working in the start frame of the animation, we do not want any of the lightning bolt to be visible yet. Select the lightning bolt, and go into the Model room. Set the Amount Shown slider to 0% in the ThØr dialog. Notice that as the slider moves to the left, the strike disappears from the previewer. Then, return to the Assemble room.

Notice that the lightning bolt is no longer visible in the scene. As with any animation, move the Time Line marker to the time when you want the bolt to hit the building, say at "00:01:05". Now go back to the Model room, and edit the bolt again.

Since at this frame, the bolt hits the building's lightning rod, move the Amount Shown back to 100%. Notice the strike now reappears in the preview.

There remains one final touch: making the lightning flicker after it hits the building. Set the Flicker Cycle to 0% at time "00:01:05". You can stay in the Model room to do this.

Move the Time Line marker to the end of the animation and set the Flicker Cycle slider to 100%.

Your timeline will look like this:

Render your scene, and you're done! You should get something like the image at the top of the page!