Plasma effect

[Master chief]

if youv ever played any sci phi games you will notice that they usualy have a force field or bubble that has a really cool plasma effect , halo 1 in the control room for example , i was woundering if there was a way to do this in AM

sort of like this with out so many colors and transparent

rainbow image

 

and sorta lke this, its the one on the bottom as i couldent add the pic here as saying something about picture extentions

picture

 

any other vareation on this would also be appreceated as i need some thing workable before flashy

[Cross]

Open your Libraries (ALT+5) and look in the projects section and open the PARTICLES folder. Open the Explosion animation and tinker around with the sprites and turn them all shades of purple/blue. you should be able to make a blue explosion. it's the closest thing i know.

[Bendytoons]

try the toonnation cellular material from the plug-in materials. You can apply it to a sphere or whatever and animate its properties.

[johnl3d]

this is as easy picking a material and animating it on what ever shape you need you animated the material by changing the value of the material in the x,y,and especially z directions as well as changing the scale over time you can even rorate it.

 

at work but could post something later

[johnl3d]

here's something I put together using a material similar to the Jeff Paries material effector tut but just using the basic material

 

 

force.mov

 

 

maybe should have used different colors ??

 

 

 

force.zip v15a

 

or was this overkill?

[Master chief]

ok thats a good effect but for the life of me i cant figure out how you did that , could you maybe jot down a few steps

[Caroline]

This is the material effector tutorial by Jeff Paries that John mentioned:

 

http://www.digitalproducer.com/pages/mater...n_animation.htm

 

Quite complicated, and I'm not sure that I ever got it to work properly.

 

It looks like John animated a material with Gradients, and animated where the gradients (one with transparency) started and ended. This is advanced stuff, and still makes me weep with frustration .

[johnl3d]

This looks complicated but it just a matter of learning how to use the gradient mixer. It is based on the model's dimensions in the model window which means even if you enlarge it when putting in the chor the material will react the same. It just takes some time play with the start and end values in the gradient which will apply the attributes accordingly then the attributes can be made into other materials or even another gradient.

 

I will try to make a simple tut later

 

 

 

 

ps no need to weep Caroline just do it

[Caroline]

I needed a strong cup of coffee just to deal with that paragraph, John.

 

Master Chief - to do materials, you should search the forum for "+material +tutorial" (without the quotes). Then do a lot of reading.

 

These are a few tutorials that I have bookmarked:

 

Jeff Paries' Pumpkin

Yves' Wood Material

 

And one from John that I just found:

 

Warning though, having done all these it takes a lot of experimentation to get what you want.

 

I am currently doing Anzonvin's Mastering Materials CD, which is just brilliant. I used to think that decals was a better way of doing it, but I may be persuaded otherwise.

[johnl3d]

Caroline

 

does the cd show you how to make the smiley face material...it uses gradients also

[Caroline]

Yes - Smiley face, USofA flag with stars. Just amazing. Practically all with gradients - I stayed up all night after I watched the Burlap sack, with proper weave - warp under and over weft, etc, with transparency between the threads.

 

I understand the concept, but he talks about 'pivot' a lot, and looks up the value for 'pivot'. I have to work out how to use that - his pivot values are usually totally different from mine.

[NancyGormezano]

I used to think that decals was a better way of doing it, but I may be persuaded otherwise.

 

Complicated materials will take much longer to render than decals. But with the new bake materials (which I haven't tried) - it may not be an issue anymore - I believe it would then make a decal of the material

[Caroline]

new bake materials

 

That's what I was thinking too, but I haven't yet created a good enough material to warrant trying that. My poor Jabberwock has been decalled, undecalled, rigged, unrigged, so much that he is very confused. Now he's thinking of having a real felt material jacket, with pure wool socks. Maybe baked too.

 

So, Master Chief, go experiment. If you are very lucky (and young), then you will retain some of what you learn, unlike the old person (me) who has to lose a bit of memory (I was going to say bit of retention, but I'm not quite there yet) to learn something else.