CG Voyager Directional Lights...

Chris2005

Granted the model is in Lightwave format, but does anyone know if they were accomplished with properly textured objects themselves, lens flares, or...?

The CG Voyager model:





I've been trying everything, spheres with falloff maps for the opacity, I've tried lens flares, but they vanish as you slow obscure the light, which doesn't happen with the method used on the actual CG Voyager, as I watch the episodes... trying to find a 3ds Max equivalent of what was done...

Melak

Lens flares vanish when you obscure the light source - well of course, else they would be visible through the other side of the ship? What do you mean?

Chris2005

Melak wrote: »

Lens flares vanish when you obscure the light source - well of course, else they would be visible through the other side of the ship? What do you mean?

I'm trying to figure out how to make them look like this on Flat Eric's model... but I'm not sure how they were achieved on the actual CG model in the series...

Melak

Why wouldn't a lens effect: glow work?

Chris2005

Melak wrote: »

Why wouldn't a lens effect: glow work?

I can give it a try...

evil_genius_180

I was trying to figure out how they got that same look on one of the meshes for Enterprise (the half saucer, AKA Intrepid.) I finally reasoned that it was probably just a lens flare.

Melak

Spheres with falloffs could work well too, though.

Chris2005

Melak wrote: »

Spheres with falloffs could work well too, though.

Yea, if they're far above the surface, so that they don't get cut off by the geometry of the hull...

Here is a glow test:







I decided to go with finalGlow, since standard Max Lens Effects Glows would require me to set a different material ID for each color light...

Voyager model by Flat Eric.

IRML

in lightwave you can set flares to glow behind objects, which basically means they don't disappear when behind objects

having said that I imagine this was done just by applying blurs to a nav light pass

Chris2005

IRML wrote: »

in lightwave you can set flares to glow behind objects, which basically means they don't disappear when behind objects

having said that I imagine this was done just by applying blurs to a nav light pass

In max, you can set the same thing, but it cuts off the flare, at certain angles... if it intersects the hull...

Interesting idea... I think I have it just about solved, using actual glows...

Melak

I still don't understand why you don't want the flares to disappear behind the ship...that would look rather odd?

Chris2005

Melak wrote: »

I still don't understand why you don't want the flares to disappear behind the ship...that would look rather odd?

If they're being used as part of the directional lights, they shouldn't vanish, until completely out of view, like in the show... not just when the omni light source goes behind the object...

The directional lights are visible, even after the source object passes behind the hull...

For example, if I used flares in this shot:



That top green light on the saucer wouldn't be visible, as far as a flare would be concerned... but I want it to be visible just like that, until the actual sphere object itself is obstructed, but if I put a omni light close enough to the hull, at the same XYZ place as the object, so the flare doesn't appear to be floating above the hull, it will vanish at this angle, even though the light sphere geometry is still visible... and if I set it to show behind objects, it will show behind the object, but at certain angles, it will get cut off by the hull, even if the flare is completely within view, and it doesn't look right, I'm trying to get it to look like it does in the show, and behave the same way, so far the glows seem to be doing the trick.

Melak

Sorry but that makes little sense
The flare is visible when the light reaches the camera. If the light is obstructed, there is no flare.

Unless you are talking about the bulb object thing on the hull - in which case you should just be applying the glow/flare to the object or it's material, and not a point light source

IRML

because he's talking about using the lens flare to simulate a different effect, it doesn't matter that a flare should disappear, in this situation he doesn't want it to - he wants it to show behind an object without either shining through or disappearing altogether, to simulate a bloom effect

navlightflares.jpg

though you're right it is better to apply glow to the material, or like I said do a nav light pass and blur it

Chris2005

IRML wrote: »

because he's talking about using the lens flare to simulate a different effect, it doesn't matter that a flare should disappear, in this situation he doesn't want it to - he wants it to show behind an object without either shining through or disappearing altogether to simulate a bloom effect

navlightflares.jpg

though you're right it is better to apply glow to the material, or like I said do a nav light pass and blur it

Exactly.

mattc

which is how the show/films did it. Render multiple passes and do it in post.

Chris2005

mattc wrote: »

which is how the show/films did it. Render multiple passes and do it in post.

Well, right now, the passes I usually do, is the regular render pass that is displayed, along with a velocity pass, and a self illumination pass, to help make lights stand out better after the motion blur is added in AE... I'm working on a video right now...

Deks

Lol... so much trouble for the little nav-lights.

I created mine on the NX-01 for example and other star-ships using spheres with fall-off maps (middle would be white, while the outer glow would be green or red (depending on the color) and it would have a slight black edge to it - kinda liked the effect.

The bloom effect you are talking about for example can be done (it's essentially what they did when we saw a warp flash from the nacelle of the warp grill that wasn't seen in the camera angle).
In 3dsMax a specialized plugin that properly simulates flares, glows, etc. for example can do this.
Not sure about LW, however I think it always had better control over such special effects... or they could have done it in post production