So I'm trying to make a sprite in Lightwave (for Nova), and I realized that I have absolutely no idea how to make engine flares. Anyone have some tips?

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

This won't tell you exactly how to make EV-style flares, but is has some good tips: (url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/9315/lw/tip8.htm")http://www.geocities...315/lw/tip8.htm(/url)

The most important things to remember are the glow and falloff. If you're wanting to make flares in the style of Nova's shuttle, all you need is a brightly colored ball with the "soft edges" shader enabled.

When you render the engine glow sprites, just diable all lights in the scene, making sure there's no ambient light, and render the sprites. If you want the engine glow to cast light onto the ship, create little point-lights where the glows are, and set 'em up with the appropriate brightness, color, and range...I think you can figure this out pretty well.

That help you out okay?

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Sure... I've already looked at that one, but I was hoping there was another way, so I could choose the method which I liked... Thanks tho.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

There are a ton of different ways you could make engine flares. What you actually do depends on what you want it to end up looking like. No one tutorial is going to teach you everything, or how do make them all.

In other words, it'd be more helpful if we knew how you wanted your flares to look before we try to tell you how to make them.

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kinda like a jet engine on afterburner.
(url="http://"http://eawilson.www1.50megs.com/")http://eawilson.www1.50megs.com/(/url) <-- the F-18 picture
or (url="http://"http://www.lmaeronautics.com/gallery/products/combat_air/f16/f16_index02.html#")http://www.lmaeronau...6_index02.html#(/url) <-- the two on the left in the second row.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

A cone with transparency and falloff should do in your case, what_is. Just play around with the settings... Not too much glow though

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Quote

Originally posted by pesimist_guy:
**A cone with transparency and falloff should do in your case, what_is. Just play around with the settings... Not too much glow though

**

hmm. I'll have to try that... I'm still working on texturing right now, so I've a bit of time to figure out what I'm going to do. Thanks.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Quote

Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**hmm. I'll have to try that... I'm still working on texturing right now, so I've a bit of time to figure out what I'm going to do. Thanks.

Matrix

**

I remember doing flares like that at some point. When I come back from school I'll try to reproduce those from the photos and give you the exact settings.

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Quote

Originally posted by pesimist_guy:
**I remember doing flares like that at some point. When I come back from school I'll try to reproduce those from the photos and give you the exact settings.

**

that'd be great. thanks.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

I only tried out the first one (the thrust-vectoring one) because the others are even easier to make. I'll give you the settings later if you insist but basically you can achieve them with a single transparent cone (and perhaps with a few toroids for the blue flare on the F-16 picture). So here's how to do the first one:

1. Select the cone tool, and press n to bring up the numeric settings panel. Just set the cone to have 2 or 3 Segments (Segment field) and then make it the size you want.

2. Why the segments part is required is because the flare on the picture isn't a perfect cone. Use the size tool to make the rings between the cone base and it's summit a little larger than the base ring so you have a nice round flare shape.

3. Assign one texture to the entire object and then save it and then send that object to layout.

4. Go back to modeler, rename the texture you just assigned the object (in this is just for convenience, you may as well let it as is) and then save the object a second time with the Save As... command. Give it a different name of course.

5. Send that object to Layout too, and resize one of both objects by factor 1.2 in all directions. Make sure the smaller flare-shaped object is in the middle of the second, but shares it's base (more or less).

6. Settings for the smaller cone:
Color : Whatever, give it a light blueish color. It looks best.
Luminosity : 400-500%, play around with it to get optimal results.
Diffuse : Leave it as it is (100%).
Specularity, Reflection : Leave them alone (0 %).
Transparency : 100%. ---> After you set that numeric value, click on the T to edit Texture setting. Set Layer type to procedural and choose Procedural Type (Fractal Noise, Turbulence, etc... don't choose patterns like Checkerboard or Wood, it will look weird). Set the Texture Value to 40%-50% - the higher that value is, the more transparent the cone will be. Leave the other Procedural settings as they are.

Now click on the automatic sizing button and then go to the Falloff Type. Set Type to LinearZ and set the Z % to a value between 8 and 12. Higher values will make the flare fade faster.

When you're done, click on the Use Texture button to confirm. You will also probably want to activate Smoothing for both cones.

8.Settings for the big cone:
Color : White.
Luminosity : About 40-50% less than the smaller one. But it's up to you.
Transparency : 100%. Texture settings are basically the same as for the other cone. Maybe a higher texture value for the proedural texture. Once again, play around with falloff.

9. Done. Remember to make sure no lights affect these flare objects or you might get some ugly results :p.

Well, this was just my 10-minutes experience playing around with falloff. As said before, the best way to learn Lightwave is do just that: experiment by yourself.

I hope this helps.

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Storm Bolt: 75 mana.Thunder Clap: 90 mana. Avatar: 125 mana. (url="http://"http://www.battle.net/war3/basics/herokillers.shtml")Owning their three heroes(/url) with your micro skills: priceless.
Some things just can't be finished with spells, for everything else, there's the (url="http://"http://www.battle.net/war3/human/units/mountainking.shtml")Mountain King(/url).

(This message has been edited by pesimist_guy (edited 01-22-2003).)

thanks, I'll try that the next chance I get.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Sorry about the grave digging, but I figured that since this is my own thread, it wouldn't matter so much. Besides, it saves me the trouble of creating a new bookmark. This keeps everything nice an simple (for me).

How would I make something like a warp nacelle glow on star trek, where there's no visible cone of flame, more like an aura of light?

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

How would I make something like a warp nacelle glow on star trek, where there's no visible cone of flame, more like an aura of light?

Matrix

Well, you could just select the polygons you want to glow, make them a seperate (slightly bigger) object, add a glow effect, and make it very luminous, but that creates some mask issues. When you are making the mask, you'll need to substract the alpha generated by the ship itself (easier to do in photoshop than LW), or the nacelles will glow through the ship (very icky to find out after you've spent 4 hours modelling and rendering).

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Sounds like you just need to use some point lights with flares. The aura of light thing can be tricky. It's easy if you're gonna be looking at the ship at a rear angle because then it will show up just by using corona or something. but from the top you usually have to make a flare type thing in order to get it to appear, just make a smaller flare like this:
above:

rear angle:

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(This message has been edited by sparky (edited 03-16-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by sparky:
**Sounds like you just need to use some point lights with flares. The aura of light thing can be tricky. It's easy if you're gonna be looking at the ship at a rear angle because then it will show up just by using corona or something. but from the top you usually have to make a flare type thing in order to get it to appear, just make a smaller flare like this:
above:

rear angle:

**

I'm working on a final project for one of my classes right now, so I currently don't have much time for experimentation (not until Wednesday, at least). I'm trying to make the Akiraprise from the new show (and for the fun of it, I'm going to do it with three different texture sets: the original, one that sets it in the EVN Federation, and one that sets it with the Aurorans), and I'm trying to figure out how to make those blue glowy things in the nacelles.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

(This message has been edited by what_is_the_matrix (edited 03-16-2003).)

(This message has been edited by what_is_the_matrix (edited 03-16-2003).)

after looking around a bit (I don't know star trek), I figured out that those are the long glowing stripes on the engines, right?

just map on a color and luminosity map that has long stripes like that, and then activate Corona and set it's input value or whatever (the thing that it set on color by default), and turn it to Luminance, and set the minimum value to below whatever the luminosity is set at, and it will glow like that.

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In a fight for peace, you must fight for equality, not revenge.
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