Implementing exhaust-glow effect.

[Isomorphix]

Hello guys, I've been working on a futuristic racer but I've run into an issue. I'm new into the 3d world and I've been wondering, what's the best* way to implement the exhaust-glow effect?

* By that I mean the most efficient in terms of speed, ease of use and reuseability

For instance, something like this


I've been thinking about it all day but I'm clueless . I considered creating a cylinder in blender but that would be messy since the normals would point outward and the glow would be invisible from the inside.
I also tried the billboard in SpecialFX but it runs slowly when adding subdivisions to make it look smoother .

Is there a simple way, without an external library?

I've looked into some games and I saw that the glow is a seperate model-particle-whatever and it's loaded beforehand.

[Isomorphix]

IVolumeLight worked like a charm as long as the scale doesn't exceed 10, After that you loose around 5 fps per 10.0f. No clue why.

[smso]

You may also achieve this by using two perpendicular quads with appropriate textures without killing the fps.

Regards,
smso

[sudi]

you can also achieve this with one quad that rotates to face the camera.