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-   -   Warp Trails Tutorials? (https://www.3dgladiators.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23064)

kageryu May 28th, 2009 04:51 PM

Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
If anyone could point me to some nice tutorials for creating those lovely warp trails seen in Star Trek I would be appreciative. I have tried a few different approaches, both in the 3D software (high motion blur values) and post processing (simple trails effect in AE) but have not been at all satisfied. I am trying to find some good tutorials for either creating the effect directly in the 3D application (such as LW, versions 5.6 or 7.5) or in post-processing. I've seen a lot of nice warp sequences, especially in the Star Trek Universe preview, and I know I am approaching it wrong.

gmd3d May 29th, 2009 03:10 AM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
have you tried here
http://members.shaw.ca/lightwavetutorials/Main_Menu.htm

Fretslayer May 30th, 2009 03:30 AM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
Here's a real good AE tut.
I used it and got some really slammin' results. :)


gmd3d May 30th, 2009 06:17 AM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
looks good

kageryu June 3rd, 2009 09:40 PM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
First I would like to say thank you both very much. I appreciate the help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taranis (Post 261356)

I hadn't tried that site before, but it is now bookmarked for future reference. While I didn't see anything that quite was what I was lookinf to do, I did see some things that were close - unfortunately the links were down :( I'll try back in a day or so and see. Though there was a good tutorial on doing those color shifting stars seen at warp, which I kinda could use too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fretslayer (Post 261361)
Here's a real good AE tut.
I used it and got some really slammin' results. :)


That was helpful. I will need to give it a shot on my fleetwarp. I had tried the "Trails" effect in AE, but as the ships were more heading into the distance, with only slight horizontal movement, it didn't quite work. I just wish I could save the video to the HD for reference when I don't have internet available.

Fretslayer June 3rd, 2009 09:55 PM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
Try this then.
I use it, it works.
:)

http://www.flvsoft.com/download_flv/

You just load it up, drop the URL of the Flash Animation you want to keep and it'll grab it from the site and save it to your drive.

One of the really important steps in the AE version is you need to make sure you have some type of blurring happening or else the effect doesn't quite work.

Here is the results I got when I messed around with the tutorial.
I am sorry there are no credits on this, it was not intended to be seen by anyone buy myself. I'm only sharing it because it might help somebody learn a cool new trick.

Enterprise: MKF Reimagined
BOP: I can't remember - but as soon as I do, I'll edit this with the artist's name
Fastest land animal: The Cheetah


kageryu June 10th, 2009 12:43 AM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
That's pretty spiffy. I have decided to give it a whirl, and am re-rendering a scene from 10 years ago into layers to give this warp effect a shot. I have a whole fleet of ships I need to jump to warp. I had orrginally rendered it in lightwave, trying to incorporate all effects into the animation itself (an while I do have the ships stretching then flying off into the distance...no nice trails or blur - never figured out how to achieve it in Lightwave). Now I will give it a shot with one layer for blurr on the ships, and a seperate layer for blur on the lit elements. Once it's done I'll try to post it so everyone can give it a look. Though the models for most of the ships are horribly old and outdated...

kageryu June 12th, 2009 01:03 AM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
Here's a very old render of the scene I am redoing and adding warp-trails too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJTjD9wncRk
I know, it's not very good. This incarnation was orriginally rendered over ten years ago, in the mid 90's somewhere, on an Amiga 4000 VT Flyer 060 50mghz machine...you don't want to know the render times. I had abandoned this project a long time ago - then many changes and events in my life kept me out of 3D and animation for the last 8 years. I am thinking of redoing these old fan projects to try to re-hone my skills and get back into 3D.

Fretslayer June 12th, 2009 06:42 AM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
That was pretty cool.
I like that you had the camera moving for part of it.
That adds a lot to the immersion feeling of being in the scene with the ships.

Not very good?
Sure it is.
There are more people who cannot do that then there are people who can.
That in and of itself makes pretty good. :)

kageryu August 16th, 2009 05:18 PM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
Ok, the warp effect for this just became a full time job. Spent the last two days playing with it, and it turns out I need to render each ship out seperately for the warp trail effect, then process each one seperately...ughhh... It's times like this I wish I had a staff...or at least an apprentice or two.

Might as well wait on this until I finish remodelling the destroyers and the Cruisers, no need to go through all that work with the cheesy ship models I am currently using.

Fretslayer August 16th, 2009 06:08 PM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by kageryu (Post 261900)
Ok, the warp effect for this just became a full time job. Spent the last two days playing with it, and it turns out I need to render each ship out seperately for the warp trail effect, then process each one seperately...ughhh... It's times like this I wish I had a staff...or at least an apprentice or two.

Might as well wait on this until I finish remodelling the destroyers and the Cruisers, no need to go through all that work with the cheesy ship models I am currently using.

If you need somebody to render a few of them for you, I'll help.

wjaspers August 17th, 2009 06:03 PM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
Have a look at this thread at 3dscifi.com, shows how it is done with geometrie, rendered in one pass. Done with 3dsmax, but learned it from a guy who did it in LW 7.


http://www.3dscifi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1563

kageryu August 20th, 2009 07:32 PM

Re: Warp Trails Tutorials?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by wjaspers (Post 261904)
Have a look at this thread at 3dscifi.com, shows how it is done with geometrie, rendered in one pass. Done with 3dsmax, but learned it from a guy who did it in LW 7.


http://www.3dscifi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1563

Thanx, I'll definately have to check this out (I used to pride myself on 1 pass rendering effects - just could never wrap my head around proper warp trails).


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