Does anyone know how I might go about creating a volume that appears to have differing density depending on the viewing angle? Specifically, I'm trying to create a spherical volume (using a simple metaball rendered as a volume) that appears to have a density of (say) 1 in x and y directions and an apparent density of (say) 0.1 in the z-direction.

The reason I'm trying to achieve this is that my metaball is stretched by a factor of 10 in the z-direction and when rendered at an angle that is close to the z-axis the extra volume depth makes the object appear too opaque, and not soft enough at the edges. I'd like to be able to render an elongated metaball volume that appears to be just as soft from all angles.

Any suggestions?

YBM