Laser special effect

What's the most efficient way to get a neat laser effect? I'm looking for something like this, with that glowy look and and soft edges.

Thanks in advance!

Try plasma its good for stuff like this

Plasma? Why?

Anyway, Additive effect is what gives lasers their glowy effect, and the soft edges can either be done with an alpha gradient sprite or by blurring a line.

Personally I would try the Line object with Additive and Madster's Variable Blur shader.

Or you can use a sprite with Additive and just stretch it, if that looks good enough for your purposes.

Or you can use a sprite with Additive and just stretch it

This is what I'd do, though thanks for the plug

Do a thin filled box and preblur slightly it on an image editor, then cut a 1px wide sprite from that and stretch it to infinity and beyond (do use additive or some other effect).

You can probably do alright with just a sprite with a carefully done alpha channel!

Here ya go.

<img src="http://files.getdropbox.com/u/666516/lightning.png">

Ah, right, alpha channels sound like the easiest method! Forgot about those with all the options

Ok.. a dumb question, but how do I use alpha channels in Construct? Is it somewhere in the picture editor? The wiki doesn't seem to mention anything on it.

Personally I would try the Line object with Additive and Madster's Variable Blur shader.

And uh, what's a Line object? Doesn't seem to be in the "Insert new object" list.

when you import a png or similar image file which includes alpha

it's automatic

you can also set an entire image's overall opacity in properties

Ah, right, alpha channels sound like the easiest method! Forgot about those with all the options

Ok.. a dumb question, but how do I use alpha channels in Construct? Is it somewhere in the picture editor? The wiki doesn't seem to mention anything on it.

Save the image you created with your graphics program (Photoshop or GIMP or what have you) as a .png with the alpha channel built in, then when you have Construct's image editor up, hit Open and select the .png file. The alpha channel will be imported automatically.

In other words, what lucid said

And uh, what's a Line object? Doesn't seem to be in the "Insert new object" list.

Sorry, I forgot there is no Line object in 0.98.9 . It's a 0.99.x feature. It does pretty much what it says... it simply draws a line. You can set the length, width, and color. Not terribly fancy, but useful if all you need is a line.

holy crap, there's a line object!

cool. It's glitchy in the editor though. (try rotating it around)

What do you mean "glitchy?" It looks fine to me.

(insert "maybe you need to update your drivers lol" comment here)

Ah, got it. Thanks! Works great, without too much system resources.

perhaps I need to update my drivers ("lol") but give it a try.

Create a line, make it HUGE (half layout, thick as a rectangle) and then rotate it around.

I see a huge shift when I do that. That probably means there's a 1px error in those angles.

I see it, too, when I do it that way