phasers and shields

booa

hi im searching for a good shield (voyager style) and phaser tutorial. Can't find them anymore..

thanks in advance.

Zardoz

Shields : SciFi-Art.com - Advanced Shield Tutorial (Voyager Style)

booa

okey thanks. hmm what about pulse phasers then? anyone knows a good tut? or perhaps help with a goa'uld staff weapon blast in 3d max..

Th0r

It's an older topic though, but I need some answers. I'd really want to make this shields on my Prometheus but I, don't know, am I stupid or what, I just don't get this tutorial. Is it not exact or is maybe that because it's written for 3DS Max 2.5, and I have 9.0? Can anyone of those who are able to make this kind of shields help me? I'd really need them. Is it possible to rewrite the tutorial to be more exact?

Guerrilla

Went through the tutorial real quick-like and as far as I remember all the stuff used is still under the same buttons it was way back in R2. Which bit is giving you trouble?

Th0r

When you said all the stuff is under the same buttons, I went through tutorial once more, trying to be more careful in understanding it (my native language isn't english) and I finaly came to the end. But there comes a problem. I need a picture in 717 x 231 dimensions (width x height). So my Prometheus comes a little bigger than that little Federation Attack shuttle. So I'd need a little bigger map of shields (when it's said to enter that map for map 3). 'Cause it doesn't look realistic when the map is so stretched. And there is another problem, the shield looks too much sphere-like, the edges can still be seen. There should be some gradient exiting of the shield on the oposite side of phaser fire, shouldn't it?

Guerrilla

Interesting dimensions you have there.

Anyway, the flare is easy enough to fix. Open up a blank scene, put on omni light on 0, 0, 0. Go to [Render] --> Effects and add a lens flare effect. Bind it to the omni light, tweak the settings (looking at the flare, it's pretty much the default settings with the animorphic setting tweaked a little) to something you like and render as big an image as you need for it. Save the image or use that one.

Or if you want to add flavour, fire up Photoshop/Gimp/whatever image program you use and paint a flare. There's a tutorial on that by ramiel somewhere in the Member tutorials forum. (I'll dig up the link in a while)
[edit] here's the PS lens flare tutorial.
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/dojo/15477-custom-lens-flares-tutorial-photoshop.html

The opacity map is a simple radial gradient map, the settings of which you can see if figure 4. Basically it's a simple black to white gradient with a bit of noise thrown in. Just make sure the maps using the right coordinates (Just put a spherical UVW Mapping modifier on the sphere and use that (step 2 in the tut)).

If you still have questions, can you post a screenshot of what you're getting now.

Th0r

Where can I find Shinines and Shin. Strength in Material editor?

Guerrilla

Oh right. There's something that changed somewhere along to road. Completely forgot about that.

They're called Specular Level and Glossiness these days.

Th0r

"Go back and set the texture's Material Effects channel to a number not used by your mesh. Apply this texture to the sphere." - says the tut ... is Material Effects channel the same thing as Map Channel? And how can I know that if I set it to my desired number, the Mesh doesn't use it?
Sry to bother you, but I really want this shields to be perfect :P

Guerrilla

No. Material Effects Channel (or Material ID) is used for determining where glows, blurs, colour corrections and other post rendering effects appear. Mapping channels are usually used for mixing multiple UVW coordinates, which can be useful sometimes, but not for the task at hand.

Anyway, see the amazing mspaint attachment to see where you can find it. Just click and pick a number that's not used for something else (in case you have other glows or effects in the scene). Be sure to set the ID for the whole material and not just a single map. Set the MatID for the glow effect to match and just like magic, you should have glowy shields when you render.

Alternatively you can just select the shield object, right click, go to properties and set the ObjectID (or whatever the number's called). Works the same way, only you get to set the ObjectID in the glow options. Doesn't really make a whole lot of difference, but it's useful to know in case you make scenes with great many glows some day.

Th0r

Yap, got past that went to Rendering/Video post... where I made Lens Effects glow, played a little with those settings and got the perfect shields in the preview image:


But there comes another problem ... when I render the image there is no glow! Why the hack?!!
The rendered image:

Guerrilla

Make sure your VP queue looks like this

Root
- Scene Event (Perspective/Camera/whatever you're rendering)
- Lenseffects Glow Event (or whateverthehell it's called)

Basically the idea is that everything is in correct order (the queue gets read from top to bottom) and nothing is parented to the other events.

Also, if you did the glow effect in Video Post you'll need to render using VP. Click on the icon that looks a bit like a running guy to render through VP. If you want to render through the Render menu as usual you need to set up the glow in Render --> Effects instead. The settings are pretty much the same.

Th0r

Yeah! It works great!
Been away for a few days so I was unable to tell you this.
I added you on MSN if that's cool with ya (probably it is, you accepted me :P) for help with other things.

Guerrilla

Yeah it's cool. That's basically why it's listed, since the whole 'meet women through SFM' thingie doesn't seem to work.

Glad you got it sorted.

Melak

You still looking for a pulse phaser tutorial? The STMC: Download Star Trek Meshes & 3D Objects for 3DS,Max,Lightwave LWO and trueSpace COB models has a max scene with different colored pulse phaser blasts, they look quite nice!
When you look at the material, you will see the main component is a gradient map, you could use the PS lensflare here too, it would probably look better!

Guerrilla

Pulse weapon tutorial:
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/3d-questions-answers/19610-pulse-weaponry.html

Melak

Nearly same priciple, but way better!

The Observer

Well, my apologies for intruding the thread but I wanted to thank everyone for finding these good sources and posting up great information! :thumb:

In short, I was looking for tuts and info on how to make phasers and "light" projectiles.

Keep up the good work!