As if I need another project that won't get enough attention...
I've read that the wormhole was made by Rhythm & Hues. They might have used Wavefront Dynamation or their own software.
But I've never found an in-depth article on its creation, or even screen grabs.
Since I like to choose projects no one else is doing, I started analyzing the sequence frame by frame and thinking how the wormhole might have been created - which led me to see if I could approximate it without using particle simulations.
Pretty sure it was done with multiple simulations & some textured vortex geometry all composited together. The growth and shrinking as it appears and disappears looks to just be scaling it up and down.
Plenty more to do, but this IS the Work in Progress section. Gotta fix the terrible camera move and work on animating it bursting to life. I also want to do what the show never did and go THROUGH the opening and into the tunnel in one unbroken shot.
Posts
Keep us informed.
Updated with the wormhole growing at the start, a terrible geometry lens flare experiment that's not working, a better but still a little bumpy camera move and some placeholder parts of the tunnel/interior of the wormhole.
Looks like a good start Mustang!
Interesting. Gonna have to look that up for reference.
I think you and NeonVisual are the only ones who have, and yours looks more accurate (i presume because you know the platform they'd have made it in better than Neon did).
Can't wait to see te end result.
Current Projects:
Ambassador Class
Thankyou to trekki, BolianAdmiral, markmassey, Starship, Brandenberg & count23 for the nice comments!
-Youtube squashed this video to 16x9 when it didn't the previous 2. Thanks Youtube! Guess I'll have to render 16x9 from here on out.
-Made the camera move slightly better again. Might just have to live with the "bumps" I perceive when it changes directions.
-Tweaked the geometry and shaders of the clouds some more. There's still some geometry intersections I need to fix.
-Need to add the dome in the middle iris-ing open.
-God Rays of light in the center are terrible. Gonna have to redo that material or think up a new way to do this.
-Replaced the geometry lens flare with a much, much better one. Flares Wizard in the Blender Market is great!
-2nd pass at the tunnel. Need to make the "tentacles" move around and add the rain drops and circular ribs onto the tunnel walls. Tentacle material is only OK. Not yet a good match to the original. UVs on Blender curve objects aren't great. Never got a great handle on how Blender does UVs anyway... Maybe I'm just too used to 3DS Max's UVs - they're just more useful.
Going on a camping trip next week, so possibly one more post and then expect some radio silence for a while.
Here it goes the rendering.
It was released by Jörg (wolfpack member) in 2003, in 3ds max 4 format. I resaved it for 3ds max 2016. If you need the file, just let me know.
that is coming along _really_ nicely.
Current Projects:
Ambassador Class
It may also be worthwhile adding a gradient of white inside the centre of hte wormhole vortex, as you fly really close it it you can kinda see the blue swirl behind the flash before you transition to the interior. retexturing all the centre to be hte same white near the centre shoudl help disguise that.
Current Projects:
Ambassador Class
The blue swirl showing through is something I didn't mind, but I'll try your suggestion & see.
Yeah, the "petals" are exactly what you noticed, a gradient from top to bottom controls how big the opening is and another repeating gradient around the side makes the individual "petals" themselves.
It got me closer, but it's not the exact effect. Was trying to avoid making & animating individual petals.
I agree with above comment about the petals at the mouth of the wormhole.. there is a burst from the centre lie a splash and the whole thing spreads outwards and colapses into the centre of the wormhile. you could probably do something similar with what you have by scaling and translating the dome you have in the centre... I might suggest slowing the specs of light that are shooting out..
but seriously i still think this is the most acurate fan made version of this effect ive seen....
Thanks for the critique and praise. Agree that the fireflies coming out of the center are too fast. I'm going to work on them so they fade out a bit sooner too.
-Big update to the tunnel! Tentacles procedurally move around and I've added the rain drops and animated circular things onto the tunnel walls. All colors are way off, but I'll work on that for the next update.
-Adjusted the Iris-open clouds some more based on comments. Its still OK for now. To get closer to perfection, I'm gonna have to re-do it with many moving pieces instead of just textures, but I'll save that for later.
-Still not happy with center yellow light, but its gonna have to do for now.
-I want to find a way to add the subtle criss-crossing lines nex tho (hard to explain unless you've stared at this a thousand times).
BUT - Youtube tutorials are my saviors.
These 3 were enormously helpful in getting the tunnel stuff to work