For some reason, I’ve gotten it into my head to build a magnetic catapult. The model is pretty much done, but I’ve hit my next snag and its driving me crazy…
That’s my last render and one look I want to keep, but, no matter what I do to the lights, they light-up the top of the catapult structure like the Fourth of July gone wrong…
Any feed-back on design and lights would be appreciated… eventually I wanna make them strobe the whole way down…
For me…
This image reminds me of the Launch Tubes on Battlestar Galactica…
Have a look at this image and perhaps it will give you some idea…
Hope this gives you some inspiration…
Cujo
My first thought is to have the parts you don’t want lit on a separate layer and have the lights only affects the objects on the same layer (use layer button in the light settings to affect only those objects)
Another option is to reduce the distance the light travels. Maybe the clip end and edge softness may help getting it right as well.
Another thought would be to dim the lights and use the compositor to amplify the lit area to look the way you want - I don’t know enough compositing to help there.
Ok lights, what to you mean?
The lights in blender like area, sun, lamp, halo…
Or the lights in the render, like a lapost or neon lights(for your model obviously neither, but just to give some solid contrasts)
For Blender Lights i am not sure cuz i dunno what u have now.
For Image lights you will probably best off, if you put them in another layer, and add glow effects using the compositor. Check out my node setup in my Jak and Daxter Zoomer Thread (http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=189699&page=3), this should help. If you need further help i have tuts and myself to help with that part(not an expert but i can get you moving)
On another note…can you post thumbnails of ur images plz? 
I’m good with lights, most of the time but when I need to place 90*3 just to get the run-way, I get problems… its just that nothing seems to work…
Right now, I’ve part of the catapult mesh copied and separated, then set with the emit option in materials…