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Lightsaber effects
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Lightsaber effects // Archive: Tech Forum
Post by Tiberius // Apr 24, 2008, 9:55am
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Tiberius
Total Posts: 19
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Hi guys, has anyone tried making realistic lightsabers in truespace before? I have worked out a way but it can only really be used for stills :(
All I do is use a thin cylinder for the blade emitting lots of the chosen colour to light the scene as if by a bright lightsaber. I then edit this render in paint shop pro to add the white blade and coloured aura. This looks great for stills, but rotoscoping a whole animation with such a complicated effect would take ages. If anyone has any ideas, even the vaguest seed of a theory, I would welcome the help. Here’s a scene I quickly threw a lightsaber into with my time consuming effect:
12207 |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 24, 2008, 10:12am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Typically, this type of thing is done post process in a program like Adobe After Effects.
One uses a prop for the saber blade and then applies special effects. It involves masking and bluring etc, much like the work you did for your still.
Several tutorials in After Effects on this, you can see how it's done in that program and maybe get some ideas. |
Post by Tiberius // Apr 24, 2008, 10:35am
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Tiberius
Total Posts: 19
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But it would save so much time if all the effect could be kept entirely within truespace. It would fade out with fog and other distance effects, and there wouldn't be the hassle of editing each frame, especially if the blade is partly behind objects or if it's blurred. I considered volumetrics but i don't know enough about the tool to know if it would work. Could it? |
Post by TomG // Apr 24, 2008, 11:07am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Volumerics wouldn't be a good solution for this. As far as I am aware, all glows are always added post process - sometimes the post process is built in to the render so its like its all being done with just a single button press, but in reality it remains post process (a separate pass by a render engine to calculate bloom and glow).
You can use glow in the realtime engine - the right settings for your scene will keep the scene dark enough not to glow, and the bright lightsaber to glow.
You can also use plugins like Coolpowers for the Model side, it has a glow shader (you paint it on the object that is supposed to glow, and then an extra post process pass calculates the glow on the materials it finds flagged to glow - this acts like an "all in one" solution, but is still a post process solution in reality).
In professional circles the glow is usually done as noted in something like After Effects.
Simpler methods to simulate this involve adding extra geometry around the object, eg repeating the cylinder of the light saber slightly larger each time, with increasing transparency. Using special transparency shaders that work based on the angle between viewer and surface point (rather than a straight transparency) can make this technique surprisingly effective. There's a glow / transparency shader that I did for ShaderLab that might help with this approach.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 24, 2008, 11:22am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Here is WWW's method, never tried it though.
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=50906&postcount=22 |
Post by splinters // Apr 24, 2008, 11:24am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Not ideal for everyone but you can get great 'glow' effects in Vray by ramping the second bounce setting up higher than the first. I got some nice neon effect like that...:D |
Post by Tiberius // Apr 24, 2008, 11:37am
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Tiberius
Total Posts: 19
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I don't have V-ray :( |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 24, 2008, 11:43am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Haven't tried this program, but it's free.
Here's a link and a tutorial.
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Lightsaber-Effects |
Post by Tiberius // Apr 24, 2008, 11:59am
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Tiberius
Total Posts: 19
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VERY cheap and nasty looking. Okay for playing around with or for cartooney 2D animations, but not what I'm looking for. |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 24, 2008, 12:20pm
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Well, the only other thing I can offer is a tutorial by one of After Effects Guru's who publishes tutorials on the net, Andrew Kramer.
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/lightsaber.php |
Post by mrbones // Apr 24, 2008, 3:28pm
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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I used bloom and glow for this lightsaber glow effect in real time.
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=63309&postcount=89 |
Post by Liger ZERO // Apr 25, 2008, 9:34am
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Liger ZERO
Total Posts: 124
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If you want to keep it in trueSpace coolpowers is the way to go. You can get some good results fast. Here is an example I did. I think you can get even better results then this if you spend a little more time then I did. |
Post by Tiberius // Apr 26, 2008, 7:23am
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Tiberius
Total Posts: 19
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Thanks, that's just what i was looking for! Call me stupid, but Coolpowers is that Dribble thing isn't it? I'm going to have to put my hand in my pocket again aren't I :( |
Post by Steinie // Apr 26, 2008, 7:43am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Nope not a Dribble thing and get your hands out of your pockets!
Coolpowers used to cost money but not anymore! Go here for the different sets...
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=79113 |
Post by rjeff // Apr 26, 2008, 8:51am
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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Reckon I will have to try CP again. I tried to install it before but, I never got the glow option..just some light settings. |
Post by rjeff // Apr 26, 2008, 8:52am
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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Oh..and while we are on the subject of glow and light. How would one make a florescent, I know I totally messed up the spelling of that, light bulb? Seeing how the whole thing glows...adding several small lights just does not look right..or maybe I am just diong it wrong. |
Post by Liger ZERO // Apr 26, 2008, 3:28pm
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Liger ZERO
Total Posts: 124
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Oh..and while we are on the subject of glow and light. How would one make a florescent, I know I totally messed up the spelling of that, light bulb? Seeing how the whole thing glows...adding several small lights just does not look right..or maybe I am just doing it wrong.
You can use coolpowers for the glow. Then use the scatter and light manager plug-ins. you might want to take a look at this thread.
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?p=15111#post15111
Here is a mini tutorial for light saber.
When coolpowers is installed you can do the following:
1. Select the wfmm color shader.
2. Select the color you want and the material id.
3. Click the custom Shading button.
4. Add wfmm glow.
5. Click properties with wfmm glow selected.
6. Play with settings. You can do multiple glows for one material id. You can see some of my settings I used for the first glow(aka the darker glow around the white). For the second glow(aka the white inner glow) I set color one to white and bright green for color 2. Size 3, blur 15, Inner 0%.
Hope this helps.:) |
Post by TigreStripe // Apr 26, 2008, 4:50pm
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TigreStripe
Total Posts: 75
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http://www.fxhome.com
Try this cheaper alternative to Adobe After Effects. |
Post by Matski007 // Apr 30, 2008, 6:30am
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Matski007
Total Posts: 539
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Its pretty much impossible sorry, there is a plugin which applies a glow in the post process, I cant remember what its called but I know its freely available. Most people use Photoshop/After Effects, for photoshop its very simple and can allow you to add the fanning effects on quick swipes, it is time consuming but worth it, I did it for my high school end of year media studies project. Once again this is where Maya is better :-( lol it has had glow effects for material since its very earliest of versions.
My advice would be to see if anyone else knows the name of the plugin, although it wont interact with volumetrics, it will still make things easier, and you could do a second renderpass with volumetrics on and mix both renders together in after effects/premier |
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