The Tips in detail

 "Faster Volume Lights"

Using volumetric lights (atm-FX: Volume Light) will slow down your rendering. But on the other hand there are enough situations, where using such volumetric lighting is indeed indicated.

You can try faking the volume light by using a geometric object with a gradiented Opacity map instead. Ie. you have a Target Spot that you want to become volumetric. You might create a cone that is of exactly the same dimensions as the Spotlight's cone. Center the cone's tip in the position where the Spotlight resides. Center the base to the Spotlight's target. Make the material double sided. Apply a Gradient to the Opacity map of the cone. Change the Difuse to the color of light emited by the Spotlight (ie. white), the ambient to ie. black. It might be necessary to modify the coordinates of the gradient. Change the Self Illumination to 100 for a start but this might be the wrong setting for your scenery. Don't forget adjusting the Shininess and Shin. Strength. Ah, yes, and exclude the cone from the Spotlight's effects.

Adding noise to the various maps of the geometric's material you can adjust the appearance to simulate those noisy fogs and other characteristics. For even more FX you might add a VP:Glow:ObjectID / EffectsID or a VP:Glow:Edges. Sometimes even this VP is faster than calculating a real volumetric light.

By applying boolean operations (create:Compound Object) to the cone, you will be able to get shadowed areas where the cone does not appear. Remember that Max can animate the results of Compound Objects. This way you are able to get faster Volume Lights even in animations.

But beware! Depending on the complexity of the boolean operation you might spend more time designing the proper Compound Object than you will spare instead of using a real volumetric light. Also the boolean operations within Max2.5 are known to be buggy (refer also to: 024: "Compound-objects don't work.".) Another point is that depending of the perspective the geometry used might look hollow. Try playing around with the material's settings on such occurances.

Always remember: you are faking! Your results might look much better using "The Real Thing". I like using this technique for achieving a fast overview during the design-and-distribution phase.