battle animation

[BES]

what kind of shockwave would fit more on a ship explosion?
sphere or ring?

Question...in this post you have pictures ...I was wondering how you get a picture like that?, with all the tiny pics in it like that?

good job btw

[Nighthawk]

it's edited on a graphic program.
you can't get that arrangement here.
anyways, those pics are not mine, but from the guy who wrote the tutorial for the explosions

had a rush of free time, so a new scene is growing on the drawing board

EDIT:
cannonical matter question: After Nemesis, the Enterprise (and we can count the Sovereign and any other Sovereign-class the Federation could have) is likely to suffer a small refit in weaponry.
in addition to the aft torpedo launchers added above the shuttlebay, did they add any Quantum lauchers behind the bridge, above the shuttlebay, or anywhere in the aft part of the saucer? (or the hull itself, for that matter?)

[Nighthawk]

found the way to make a sort of .... hand....
kinda borg...
but serves for testing character animation. I'll include bridge scenes once I get used to bones and bipeds

http://files.filefront.com/handavi/;8136609;;/fileinfo.html

[Nebula]

did they add any Quantum lauchers behind the bridge, above the shuttlebay, or anywhere in the aft part of the saucer? (or the hull itself, for that matter?)

nope....

[Creative Inc]

How are you going about with the shields? Do you have any idea on how to do skin shields?

[Legacy]

How are you going about with the shields? Do you have any idea on how to do skin shields?

opacity masked bubble with a noise diffuse and a gradient opacity ;-)?

[Nighthawk]

How are you going about with the shields? Do you have any idea on how to do skin shields?

opacity masked bubble with a noise diffuse and a gradient opacity ;-)?

more or less.
actually, I just add a plane or mesh where I want the shield to glow, add a material with the shield texture and an alpha map, then just keyframe visibility and glow.
the pic up there ^^, with the intrepid firing on the bugship, was the test bed for that tecnique.

[Creative Inc]

No, I actually mean hull-tight shields. Does anyone know how you could do that?

[Nighthawk]

No, I actually mean hull-tight shields. Does anyone know how you could do that?

that's the mesh I was talking about.
it will be added to the cruiser's shields.

EDIT: here is the test bed on the cruiser. those white edges are the mesh of the shield. they will look right once I add the opacity map.
although, after watching some DS9 episodes, I don't remember seeing those cruisers with shields lol.

[Creative Inc]

Interesting. I was thinking more a long the lines of the shielding on the Enterprise from Nemesis.
I you're interested, you might want to look into this alternative: Video and screen provided.

[Legacy]

Interesting. I was thinking more a long the lines of the shielding on the Enterprise from Nemesis.
I you're interested, you might want to look into this alternative: Video and screen provided.

Same technic can be used. You just need to add the proxy mesh closer to the final mesh.
As for the opacity, i would use a procedural one, so i could animate it easily from inside max.

[Nighthawk]

Interesting. I was thinking more a long the lines of the shielding on the Enterprise from Nemesis.
I you're interested, you might want to look into this alternative: Video and screen provided.

Same technic can be used. You just need to add the proxy mesh closer to the final mesh.
As for the opacity, i would use a procedural one, so i could animate it easily from inside max.

yep, in the end, it's the same effect but without that "splash" effect on the texture. I mean, it doesn't expand away from the impact point. it just appears, flickers a bit and fades out.
kinda mix of Nemesis and Generations shield style.
in the Sovereign, I'm putting a bit of Insurrection-style shields. close to the hull but not wrapped around it. mainly because it will take some hits away from the cruiser, so I want it to be visible.

[Creative Inc]

Heh. The shield effect I did was done using a direct light and using the projector aspect of that light. The shield texture was just an .avi I rendered before hand and projected it onto the hull. There is no physical mesh there for the shield.

[Nighthawk]

Heh. The shield effect I did was done using a direct light and using the projector aspect of that light. The shield texture was just an .avi I rendered before hand and projected it onto the hull. There is no physical mesh there for the shield.

could do, but with the mesh I can make it glow without actually emmitting light.
also, using keyframes, I can loop the glow if there is more than one shot over that point. In fact, I'm timing the animation using a sound track as base. so no matter the amount of shots over a point, or how fast they move, or how hard they seem to hit, I can handle the time of the glow at will, make it shorter, longer, make it flicker back and forth, vanish it, etc...
I just place the mesh and the material, add two keyframes at the endpoints of the impact sound, adjust the effect in the middle (fade, flicker, hold, whatever) and render.

[Creative Inc]

How are you doing your phaser effects?

[Nighthawk]

a line as placeholder with object ID.
I add the glow and sparks in Video Post.

there's also a tecnique with a plane, a noise map and Glow and Glare shaders, but I didn't use it yet. it would require using a constraint to make the plane face the camera.

it can also be done with particles, but if you move it, it will "bend". but for still shots it's much better.

the first serves perfect for battles. the second, for close-ups and the third for beauty shots lol

[Nighthawk]

posting and not editing 'cuz I want this to be visible.
anyone willing to do an uniform texture for this project?
I need a new version of the uniform (remapped) because the one I have (stock) is way too crappy and I need a new layout of them to place it on a high-poly model

I'll send anyone who volunteers the mapping I'm using to build the texture over it.

this is how it looks like, despite my efforts lol

[Jb06]

well im making nemesis uniforms so i can probably try and use them instead of your current ones. there 100x better than stock

~Jb06

[Nighthawk]

would do if you can re-arrange the texture.
do you want the mapping template?

[Legacy]

bump mapping (or if you're smart enough to use vray for interiors, vray displacement mods) are your friends for fed uniforms. :arms: