Light Beams

Given that we just started exploring with lights in Maya, I wanted to go further and check what type of environments can we create in this software. I did some research and found this blog, Fstoppers. They do a really great job putting up tutorials about different aspects of photography and film. One of the articles I found was about natural beam light photography. Here are some examples of photographs that I really liked:










All of these give a different mood and color to their environment. We can actually see the lighting has different behaviors depending on the setting. I'm a firm believer that we have to keep in mind all these aspects before starting any kind of production. This idea applies to Maya as well. We need to know what environment we want to create before starting playing with lights, polygons, etc. Now that that's been said, I though that it would be pretty cool to create some beam lights in Maya. I read in some websites that this is accomplished by placing a spotlight and fog in your scene.
This video gave me a pretty good idea about how you would create a beam light in Maya. You guys should check it out!