›

Greetings!

Welcome to Scifi-Meshes.com! Click one of these buttons to join in on the fun.

Sign In Register

Quick Links

Particle Cannon Beam

efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
edited March 2007 in Technical Questions and Answers #1
I'm want to make a render of my Battle Cruiser unleashing its main gun. Problem is I don't know where to start.

See my Cyberian Battle Cruiser thread for more details.

What I was wanting is to know how to make a really good looking Particle beam. For the extra credit, I'd love to be able to make some bleed-off arcing off the main beam.

I'm using Max 8 SP 3.

Help?
Post edited by efritsch on

Posts

  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    #2
    Bueller? Bueller?
  • RamielRamiel336 Posts: 0Member
    #3
    With standard particle effects should be easy...
    I'll try to describe the process tomorrow, now I'm going to sleep:shiner:

    (If I forgot, send me a PM :) )
  • RamielRamiel336 Posts: 0Member
    #4
    Ok, I've sent you a PM about this...
    This is the test I was talking about in the PM...
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    #5
    Damn that looks cool. I eagerly look forward to a tutorial about it.
  • Silverblade-T-ESilverblade-T-E0 Posts: 0Member
    #6
    I don't have MAX, just Vue, but I came up with a nice way to make a cool beam effect:

    standard cylinder with luminous and glowing material, colour range from light/radioactive-type-blue to dark blue to , BUT, what I did was to have the material's transparency linked into a Voronoi function (like water caustics on a pool). so you get an effect that's more varied and interesting than a "typical laser" blast

    Dunno if that's applicable to Max or any use to you though
    :)
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    #7
    I'll have to look at trying something like that. I know Max has a water function in there somewhere.... at least I think it does.
  • Silverblade-T-ESilverblade-T-E0 Posts: 0Member
    #8
    Efristch
    I tried posting a reply, but my ISP's been freaking out, grr, kept timing out replies on many web pages....(Blueyonder/Virgin Scotland system went nuts, sigh)
    made a quick render ot show, so hoping this post goes through, if so will try and post render later :)
  • Silverblade-T-ESilverblade-T-E0 Posts: 0Member
    #9
    k, here we go, not brilliant, just quick Vue render, but you get the idea :)
    1 outer cylinder, inner one has same material, luminous bumped up to 200% and the colours moved up nearer to white.
    I think it looks better with no glow if up close but further off the glow gives it a noticble effect and looks better than a simple beam.

    I think Ramiel's effect probably is better, but the voronoi-procedural is quick.
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    #10
    That's a cool beam as well. Ramiel's tutorial should include the cannon charging though too I think.

    I'll give your idea a shot as well though.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]2 Posts: 3Member
    #11
    max comes with a "water effect" if you have vray, it's under vray material -> transparency -> (drop down menu) water

    How'd you get that charging effect Ramiel?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]2 Posts: 3Member
    #12
    Hey All! Here's what i got, couldn't figure out how you did the charge thing though Ramiel, but i made a beam. It's really quite simple and if anyone feels the need for me to post how i did it please feel free to pm me. Basically it's 2 glows applied to a blue cylinder. Glow 1 has a size of 1 with some inferno and the second has a size of 10 with as slight gradient ramp. The width of the beam depends on the radius of your cylinder, and the length depends on the height of the cylinder. Add some keyframes and you're done.



    *EDIT* : It appears as if my movie isn't working so i re-uploaded it. It works now i checked.
  • RamielRamiel336 Posts: 0Member
    #13
    Sorry for the delay, but I'm working and I have no time to write a full tut at the moment...
    The charging effect was done with a particle cloud "emitted" from a taurus (not-visible: right click > Properties > uncheck "Renderable") and linked at a spherical gravity right in the front of the cannon, the particles are just standard triangle particles, 100% self-illumination and the opacity is a "particle life" material (transparent at the beginning and 100% visible at the end). The duration of the life of the particles was made to disappear when they are in the front of the cannon... I hope this helps.
    The beam was a standard Super Spray emitter with a 100% self illuminated material for the particles (a "Six Point" particle) with a "Glow" effect...
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    #14
    I'll give it a shot for now and see what I get. If at some point you have time to write a full tut, that would be great, but I appreciate your help as it stands now too.
  • RamielRamiel336 Posts: 0Member
    #15
    I still want to write a tut, I just need some spare-time! :shiner:
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    #16
    Bumpish, any luck finding some time yet?

    Sorry, don't want to sound like a pita, but your laser is just too cool.
  • RamielRamiel336 Posts: 0Member
    #17
    I just realized that I will be not able to write a full tut soon, so...
    I've posted the MAX file (3DS MAX 8)
    I hope you will understand what I've done there... ;)
  • efritschefritsch0 Posts: 0Member
    #18
    Ramiel wrote: »
    I hope you will understand what I've done there... ;)

    I will sure as hell try!

    Thanks a bunch Ramiel, I really appreciate it.
Sign In or Register to comment.