Quick recreation shot from Wrath of Khan

martok2112 · January 12th, 2012, 02:51 AM

Hi, folks,

This is just a quickie recreation of a shot from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The U.S.S. Reliant firing first on the Enterprise. No sound fx.

Ships created by me in Blender.

Phasers were created by animating a darting diamond pattern over a "tower" sky surface. Explosions were created by placing video of an explosion from the classic "Battlestar Galactica" on the diffuse and glow boxes of the "blaze" particle effect. A little creative re-purposing of established resources, if you will.

Click on pic to view animation.

gmd3d · January 12th, 2012, 03:29 AM

effective effects

..

martok2112 · January 12th, 2012, 12:08 PM

Thanks, Ger.

BST · January 12th, 2012, 04:36 PM

Can I say "Shiny"?

I like the word, "shiny".

We now return you to your unorganized mayhem !

martok2112 · January 12th, 2012, 05:00 PM

Shiny is good.

Thanks, Pete.

martok2112 · January 14th, 2012, 11:18 AM

Added a little bit more footage, this time with sound effects.

Matador · January 14th, 2012, 12:33 PM

Nice... I like.

Senmut · January 14th, 2012, 09:22 PM

I wish ABC had given Larson & Co. enough to do FX like these.

martok2112 · January 15th, 2012, 12:58 AM

Thanks, guys

And most flattering, Senmut. Thank you.

Senmut · January 16th, 2012, 12:47 AM

Thunderstruck · February 9th, 2012, 10:30 AM

I concur....

Lately I have had a few goes at trying to make some star trek phaser effects myself, with limited success. What I came up with is passable I guess.

I did see a phaser effect done in 3ds that was really nice. But I believe it required mentalray and it needed script adjustments.
May have been a Tut at Scifi meshes.

I love it when others add some info on the creation such as you and Mr Kerin.
It is appreciated.

Though am unsure exactly of it, somehow I understand it

Regards,

Randal

martok2112 · February 10th, 2012, 12:28 AM

Most kind, Randal, thank you.

Basically, here's how the phaser effect is created:

The tower, that I mentioned is a "sky" surface...in other words, it is meant to serve as a surrounding background/environmental image for a scene. However, the width/length of the tower can be reduced to almost a thin beam.

The video I made for the phaser was also created in iClone. I took a white, elongated diamond shape, and had it run (against a black background) from top to bottom of the UI display. Only needed to do that run once, as the video of it will replay (thus creating the "rapid fire" effect).

The black on white serves two purposes. One, to give me a base color for the phaser. Since phasers are bright, white is perfect. (I can change the diffuse color later, to make it red, and then add a red glow effect.)

The second purpose of black on white is for transparency or opacity. In an opacity texture, anything black (the background) is invisible. Anything white is solidly opaque. Anything gray is transparent, depending on the level of gray applied. So, with a black background, and a white, elongated diamond shape for the phaser, I thus have my "phaser bolts".

I can use that same video to create my own custom glow effect for the phasers, or I can use one of the many glow effects available in iClone. The more I've learned about custom glow effects though, the more I've been inclined to use my own custom jobs.

Now, with the "beam" created, I can superimpose the video I'd made into the diffuse, opacity, and glow textures for that "beam". And voilla, I have my rapid fire phaser beam which I can turn in any direction.