3DAnother ST:TMP-type light trails effect project

juanxer

A few weeks ago, Animator started a thread on replicating Star Trek: The Motion Picture's warp drive effect. He approached it the hard way, by building real trail geometry and attaching it to an Enterprise model.

Lazy bum that I am, and a fan of TMP's warp effect too, I started to think about how one could cheat its way into such VFX (nearly hijacking his thread in the process. My apologies), be it by pure 2D compositing tricks in Photoshop and After Effects or by mixing it with some specific 3D fx passes.

The things I think I can do are:

- Create the warp trail as a Photoshop drawing, in one or several layers, and animate masks on it in After Effects to simulate the original effect's trail dynamics. I did a crude test and saw that, actually, it worked quite well in some aspects: the ship's movement aligned well with the triangle-shaped trail of lights, and one could make the trails as complex as desired. Of course, the problem is that the drawing has to be a custom fit to the camera angle (although one could do a "neutral" warp trail and deform it in AE to fit different camera angles, I guess), and the masking even more so (no shortcuts there, although… Mmm…). The major work would be to mask well the light's trailing edges: in the original VFX, the thinnest trails (the windows' and formation lights' ones) have these rounded endcap-like edges that would be a real pain to mask-delineate well.

- Another approach I am playing with is using an "inverse" volumetric shadow cone: my 3D app, EIAS, lets me invert these so that, instead of creating shafts of shadow in a cone of volumetric light by interposing geometry, it creates shafts of light originating from such geometry. I can group parts of a starship model into sets and assign differently coloured lights' glows for each, and I can even go cheaper and assign a map as a "gel" to color the trails (well, I could if it wasn't broken. I discovered the bug yesterday: I hope it is something the programmers forgot to reactivate in their last build, easy to recover).

- Then, of course, there is playing with "echo time" and "light ray"-type plugins and see what they can do.

And playing with all of them at once, although that probably will produce an utter mess of a visual.

Apart from all that, there is the matter of doing the tunnel of rainbow-coloured bars well. The original is an interesting beast: the "cylinders" of bars have a progressively higher quantity of bars; each cylinder's bars are differently and irregularly distributed in a circle, with gaps; each bar has sort of small horizontal flares in the gaps between its different colours; etc. Also, the starting and ending starflare is such a mix of effect lens photography and possibly airbrushed art that it's better to produce an analog via Photoshop than through some lens flare plugin. The timings in this VFX are crucial, too.

(Although I adore ST:TMP's warp drive effect, I think it has a bit of a problem in the way it does the trailing edge of the light trails, as it robs it of some of its feeling of speed. The second warp jump, with the camera behind the saucer, seemed to work better by having only parts of the saucer section producing a visible trailing edge)

Well. I'll put whatever I try in this thread, pics and little movies and things.

juanxer

This is a fast and loose example of inverse volumetrics: one single light affecting the whole ship. Next time I'll separate the ship in groups and use several lights with different colours to create separate trails of light. I can omit parts of the ship if needed, too. One advantage of this approach would be that one can create new simple light blocking objects to add new trails to the ones naturally occuring because of the ship's original parts, or create an entire set of objects that haven't that much to do with the ship's, to produce an specific light trail in situ or in a separate pass.

(The warp tunnel needs LOTS of work)

Chris2005

juanxer wrote: »

Also, the starting and ending starflare is such a mix of effect lens photography and possibly airbrushed art that it's better to produce an analog via Photoshop than through some lens flare plugin. The timings in this VFX are crucial, also.

(Although I adore ST:TMP's warp drive effect, I think it has a bit of a problem in the way it does the trailing edge of the light trails, as it robs it of some of its feeling of speed. The second warp jump, with the camera behind the saucer, seemed to work better by having only parts of the saucer section producing a visible trailing edge)

You should check out Video Copilot's Optical Flares, a great AE plugin, I'd say you get the bang for the buck on this plugin.

As for the trails in TMP, the trails from stuff, that you see are what is visible in the self illumination pass for the shot.

juanxer wrote: »

This is a fast and loose example of inverse volumetrics: one single light affecting the whole ship. Next time I'll separate the ship in groups and use several lights with different colours to create separate trails of light. I can omit parts of the ship if needed, too. One advantage of this approach would be that one can create new simple light blocking objects to add new trails to the ones naturally occuring because of the ship's original parts, or create an entire set of objects that have that much to do with the ship's, to produce an specific light trail in situ or in a separate pass.

(The warp tunnel needs LOTS of work)

Nice, I'm not sure if Max's volumetric tools can invert to an object, like this, but I've messed with volumetric's enough, except to make gas nebula's, etc.

juanxer

This was the crude test done with a warp trail drawn in Photoshop:

It would need tons of massaging, but I think it shows that the method has promise.

NanoGator

I know the guy that was responsible for a lot of those effects in the original Star Trek movie, I bump into him from time to time. You guys got a question you'd like me to run by him next time I see him? Would that help in figuring this stuff out?

http://www.richardtaylordesign.com/features/startrek-01.php

Chris2005

NanoGator wrote: »

I know the guy that was responsible for a lot of those effects in the original Star Trek movie, I bump into him from time to time. You guys got a question you'd like me to run by him next time I see him? Would that help in figuring this stuff out?

http://www.richardtaylordesign.com/features/startrek-01.php

Possibly, but the effect in TMP was achieved by long exposure on the camera, etc. something that I guess has been neglected in visual effects tools, etc. or something to simulate such an effect using intuitive means.

NanoGator

Well yeah, thats the point . The more you know about how it was originally done, the more you can find out about how to recreate it.

NanoGator

Sorry, I hit submit too fast:

I seem to remember there was an AE plugin yonks ago that acted as a form of accumulation buffer...if you rendered like 4x as many frames of the light layer you could get a similar streak... been a long time since i"ve looked into it, tho, but it seems like a similar rig could be set up. Id be willing to bet he used certain filters on the lenses too... hmm that'd be an interesting question to pose to him

IRML

echo time is the only way to do it, and surely the easiest too

NanoGator

Does the accumulation gag ring a bell?

Or maybe it was a combination of echo time and twixtor?

Edit: Or ReelSmart MotionBlur?

Dr-Timelord

I forgot where i saw this, on one of the lightwave sights

but overall its a nice effect that is reminiscent of the TMP warp streak, but If i remember correctly it was done with ALOT of different layered effects

NanoGator

That is slick!

IRML

NanoGator wrote: »

Sorry, I hit submit too fast:

I seem to remember there was an AE plugin yonks ago that acted as a form of accumulation buffer...if you rendered like 4x as many frames of the light layer you could get a similar streak... been a long time since i"ve looked into it, tho, but it seems like a similar rig could be set up. Id be willing to bet he used certain filters on the lenses too... hmm that'd be an interesting question to pose to him

woops you ninja'd me with that post

it's not motion blur, that'll act on one frame at a time, the long exposure is basically massive motion blur yes, but you won't achieve the same in post with a blur plugin

dunno what the accumulation buffer thing is, I think this can be done in AE without any plugins just by staggering layers, if I had some footage I would try it, depending on how long you want the streak twixtor could help smooth it out, AE has some built in tools for this

IRML

Dr-Timelord wrote: »

I forgot where i saw this, on one of the lightwave sights

but overall its a nice effect that is reminiscent of the TMP warp streak, but If i remember correctly it was done with ALOT of different layered effects

that's mr wilde's work

that's done in a different way, radial blur I think, if you find the vanishing point of the ship you can do it with radial blur but I don't think it'll give you the same effect as the TMP

juanxer

NanoGator wrote: »

I know the guy that was responsible for a lot of those effects in the original Star Trek movie, I bump into him from time to time. You guys got a question you'd like me to run by him next time I see him? Would that help in figuring this stuff out?

Thank you for your kind offer. At risk of sounding presumptuous, I think there is no need to bother him (although it would be grand to learn from his experience in that era's VFX). The basics of the light trails effect are well known. The issue is that replicating them in 2D/3D CGI means going at it in a very roundabout manner: there is no direct equivalent to exposing a frame of film while the filmed subject is moving. Yes, there are means to accumulate the frames from a certain time interval into a single one, but they lack the continuous character of the real thing unless one brute-forces the process (perhaps optical flow could help there somehow. Directional blur could help disguising the problem, but…).

lennier1

IRML wrote: »

... if I had some footage I would try it ...

Like the stuff from the TNG intro you tried many moons ago (before the major overhaul)?

IRML

alas none of that remains

NanoGator

juanxer wrote: »

Thank you for your kind offer. At risk of sounding presumptuous, I think there is no need to bother him (although it would be grand to learn from his experience in that era's VFX). The basics of the light trails effect are well known. The issue is that replicating them in 2D/3D CGI means going at it in a very roundabout manner: there is no direct equivalent to exposing a frame of film while the filmed subject is moving. Yes, there are means to accumulate the frames from a certain time interval into a single one, but they lack the continuous character of the real thing unless one brute-forces the process (perhaps optical flow could help there somehow. Directional blur could help disguising the problem, but…).

^^ I was able to generate the above blurry bit just using a 2d image sequence. Wouldn't that cover a good chunk of it? Seems like at that point it'd just be a matter of generating the right passes. But I may be oversimplifying...

IRML

I think that's the perfect way to do it, people are talking about this in both threads like it's hard to do, but you will already have the frames generated from the animation, all you need to do is repeat them, so it shouldn't be very taxing at all

NanoGator

Mainly I just used the CC Time Blend plugin, set it to 99%, and 'Screen' transparency. Shoulda mentioned that in my last post, sorry. Heh

Tallguy

I've been meaning to try something along these lines for ages but haven't quite known the way to go to replicate the old school "open shutter" gag. The physically modeled warp streaks have never quite done it for me.

Tallguy

NanoGator wrote: »

^^ I was able to generate the above blurry bit just using a 2d image sequence. Wouldn't that cover a good chunk of it? Seems like at that point it'd just be a matter of generating the right passes. But I may be oversimplifying...

Can you give more specifics on how you put that together?

Chris2005

NanoGator wrote: »

Mainly I just used the CC Time Blend plugin, set it to 99%, and 'Screen' transparency. Shoulda mentioned that in my last post, sorry. Heh

That just might work... However, what was the FPS of your Comp, AE I believe can handle only up 99-100 FPS.

NanoGator

24. The key factor is that the motionblur was set to 100%.

Chris2005

NanoGator wrote: »

24. The key factor is that the motionblur was set to 100%.

I'll render out a a sequence, and do all that, and see what I get.

juanxer

That was mightily interesting . My problem is that for lowish FPSs (say, cinema-like 24fps) I don't get continuous trails but a pattern (such as a dotted line in the case of windowslights' trails). I'd have to either render and pre-composite at a higher FPS or pre-blur the lit areas (perhaps a motion blur plugin, which ought to produce a better starting point for the CC Time Blend one?).

NanoGator

Chris2005 wrote: »

I'll render out a a sequence, and do all that, and see what I get.

I'm sorry for writing awfully short answers, I'm at work and would rather my supervisor not see me posting. (it's hard to explain that little exercises like these help me solve problems down the road...)

I've attached the After Effects file I used, maybe it'll help.

NanoGator

juanxer wrote: »

That was mightily interesting . My problem is that for lowish FPSs (say, cinema-like 24fps) I don't get continuous trails but a pattern (such as a dotted line in the case of windowslights' trails). I'd have to either render and pre-composite at a higher FPS or pre-blur the lit areas (perhaps a motion blur plugin, which ought to produce a better starting point for the CC Time Blend one?).

I am so sorry, I accidently editeded your post when I meant to hit 'Reply with quote'. My bad, that's what I get for typing distracted.

Here's what I wrote:

If you render them with 100% blur it should be fine. Alternatively you could use a post-blur technique like "ReelSmart Blur' to make it a little more continuous. (Edit: You suggested this already, didn't catch it the first time.)

Or, like you said, you could render it at a higher frame rate. I don't think that's a huge deal, though, since you'd only be rendering the self luminous bits, no need for long render times or anything like that.

NanoGator

I'm also sorry for saying sorry a lot. Sorry dudes!

IRML

can't you use AE's interpolation tools to double or triple the frames? I still think this should be possible without any plugins, I wouldn't be using the CC plugins myself because I think they only support 8bit?

juanxer

I tried using AE's frame blending (it uses pixel flow analysis at its highest setting) but somehow it wasn't enough. Anyway, I'll try increasing the FPS, the motion blur for the most troublesome elements or both.

One interesting thing about this solution is that one must imitate the way the TMP guys lit the ship when she activates her warp engines, creating extra pools of blue light on the top side of the nacelles, the bridge area, etc. One can see them appearing at the same time the warp grills light up.