Lamppost - volumetric lighting

Hi all - I am playing with the new volumes in blender 2.5 and the first goal I gave myself is to render a photo-realistic night street scene in fog.

Right now i’m just focusing on the lighting around this lamppost. It is a combination of volumetric lighting (the entire scene is inside a volume object), spotlight facing down with halo, and lights spaced throughout the area of the spotlight to add some un-evenness to the look. (I think there is a way to achieve this with density textures for the volume but I haven’t tried that yet)

Anyone have thoughts on how the lighting is looking? Also I am getting some banding along the edges of the bright parts - I have tried upping the light sampling values but it’s still there. Thoughts/criticism?

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I’ve had a plethora of issues doing what your trying to accomplish,
Here is a spotlight with an animated texture that controls density.
I tried to apply it to a semi complex scene, and I’ve done small scale.
Regarding the banding, try messing around/lowering the step value and cutoff value.
http://www.renderfarm.fi/animations/987