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I've just started playing around with LuxRender in Blender. I've made a scene with a sun and light going through a slit into a prism. To the prism I have assigned the prisma material from the LuxRender materials database. When I then render the whole prism seems to glow like the image below:

enter image description here

I then added the 'air' volume as the default exterior volume and the whole scene just ended up glowing:

enter image description here

Using a Glass material I seem to be able to get some renders that look quite normal, so any help with Glass 2 is welcome! Thanks in advance.

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    $\begingroup$ @NoviceInDisguise I think so? Luxrender is one of the common render engines to use with Blender, it just doesn't come pre-packaged. I've asked at least one question before that had a Luxrender-based answer. $\endgroup$ – Gwen Mar 28 '15 at 20:04
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    $\begingroup$ I'm guessing that the air volume is a bit too dense, resulting in light getting scattered everywhere (as if the scene was filled with fog). As for the glowing prism, I'm not sure. I'm fiddling around with it now.. $\endgroup$ – gandalf3♦ Mar 28 '15 at 20:39
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    $\begingroup$ I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because its not about blender, it is about luxrender $\endgroup$ – GiantCowFilms Mar 28 '15 at 21:04
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    $\begingroup$ This is borderline at most. I would say our scope allows external engines to an extent but this question seems out of discord with Blender as it focuses more on the engine. I would propose moving the validity of this to meta. $\endgroup$ – iKlsR♦ Mar 29 '15 at 3:02
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    $\begingroup$ I've posted a meta: meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/672/599 Feel free to voice your concerns/opinions/thoughts/etc there :) $\endgroup$ – gandalf3♦ Mar 29 '15 at 6:13
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Prism scene composed entirely within Blender, demonstrating Luxrender's dispersion simulation

In my experience, rendering with Luxrender in Blender still (as of June 2017) means avoiding many features that innocently present themselves as "Blender-friendly" (like nodes, LuxCore API, materials conversion, etc.), and sticking to core Luxrender as much as is possible within Blender. In my opinion, this is largely because the two approaches to rendering are fundamentally different, making the "Blender friendly" attempts only obfuscate the fact that, in the end, to get the most out of Luxrender through Blender, the user must adapt to Luxrender's different perspective (on materials, lighting, rendering, outputting). This is not a criticism of Luxrender; I could say the same about how we adapt when going between Blender Internal and Cycles. That said, I do think Luxrender's "Use Materials Nodes" button is almost an invitation for confusion, since it doesn't even appear to give access to the specific things (like dispersion, for example) that make me sometimes choose Luxrender for a particular use.

The rules I tend to stick by when using Luxrender in Blender:

  • Don't use nodes
  • Use only Classic API (not LuxCore API)
  • Use only LuxRender GUI
  • Don't use the "convert" Blender materials to Luxrender materials feature

In regard to dispersion (the prism effect you are looking for), all you need to do is go to the Materials tab, select material type "Glass", and turn up the "Cauchy B" slider.

Blender Render tab when using Luxrender Blender Material tab when using Luxrender

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