I've been looking for a year or so now, to find precisely how the effect was done... I've messaged Doug Drexler, to see if he had any idea since I believe the NX-01 was modeled by him... and since he does VFX for a living... I've received no reply...
Update:
Well, Doug replied, and said that it was done by the compositing department, in a program like After Effects or Fusion...
So now, I need to figure out what effect could be used to achieve the effect... possibly the zoom motion blur?
Posts
pardon me if I am out of date and unknowing, I only began 3d Oct 2010....
Do not know much bout AE or Post stuff.
The only way I know of is using polys. I will animate the poly's shape-length to form the trail.
then try using materials and glows....or separate passes, then try some things in AE.
Looking at that, I think it is AE also as a post effect.Am afraid I do not know what AE effects or plug ins.
Have seen a few tuts that have similar looking characteristics.
Hope you figure it out, I would love to know also...
EDIT addendum.
I just did almost exactly that using AE with imported C4d .
Using a light, as an emitter in AE and using Trapcode Paticular
There are 2 tuts for doing this @ VideoCoPilot.
Regards,
Randal R.