You Can Call Me Ray

So you've tried pointing an AE light directly at the active camera, hoping to see rays bursting out of it. But instead, you got darkness . What gives? Light that emits rays is called "volumetric light." (Think of light that fills up a volume), and unfortunately AE's lights aren't volumetric. This is where third-party plug-ins come to the rescue. Three popular ones for creating rays of light are Trapcode's Shine and Lux as well as Red Giant's Knoll Light Factory.