I made this based on Peter Draper book, "Deconstructing element on 3d max" 2nd edition. Interesting because you do it without any plugin. It just use some light and several gradient map to make this awesome effect. I'm to focus on the afterburner effect, I didn't notice there are some object that I forget to link And you will notice that in the right side corner there's some odd image. Unfortunately I don't know how to fix that
Best hope, you can enjoy it
Software: 3ds max2009 Flash 8 for combine all scene VF-1 and Macross is copyright of Studio nue, Bandai, Banpresto, Tatsunoko production.