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Eve engine effects
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FreshClip
Tax On Happyness
#1 - 2011-12-14 10:40:56 UTC
After playing about with Tri exporter and Cinema 4d and I've been pulling my hair out all morning trying to create or re-create an engine flare/fire/trail (or whatever else have you) effect. I was wondering how the bro's at CCP do it since in hindsight i'd like to get something as close to the original as possible.

[u]My Blog:[/u] http://freshclipmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

[u]My youtube channel:[/u] http://www.youtube.com/user/FreshClipMedia
Talaan Stardrifter
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2 - 2011-12-14 12:15:26 UTC
Dev Blog: Re-Inventing The Trails

tl;dr, splines and ray tracers =)
AlleyKat
The Unwanted.
#3 - 2011-12-14 12:48:45 UTC
Talaan Stardrifter wrote:
Dev Blog: Re-Inventing The Trails

tl;dr, splines and ray tracers =)


^^This.

Create a particle emitter from thinking particles and use a spline as its path.

Only issues to be wary of are when your ship is moving fast, the particles per second rate may need to be altered to compensate.

You could use volumetric lights and assign a tube for each exhaust port as a secondary option, or even to double up the particle effect...might be simpler, and then gives you options for allowing the light to radiate onto the ship models.

Or you could use UDK, as it has a very similar effect built-in and with some minor tweaks, could work to your advantage.

Guess it depends on what you're doing; creating movies or creating wallpapers.

'Cause if it's wallpapers, photoshop it?

AK

This space for rent.
FreshClip
Tax On Happyness
#4 - 2011-12-14 16:01:31 UTC
Just to clarify i was more interested in the actual engine "cone" than the elongated trails left behind them. Also yeah it's for movies so photoshopping it is not an option and i'm doing this as a learning experience for C4D so I've forbidden myself from cheating =P.

All i want to create for the time being is a simple fly by scene just to make sure everything is working, so far i have the model exported, correctly textured and lightmapped sans the guns. Before i can animate it though i need to animate the engines. Originally i went for a "superheated" kind of look using several luminescent and glowing objects (with the intent of lens flaring the crap out of it in after effects) but while it looked "ok" i felt it was a cop out so i figure i'd try for the real deal.

As said this one really has me stumped i am honestly surprised at the lack of tutorials on what i would thing would be a commonly used effect and the closest i got was a blowtorch tutorial that gave me a 404 >.<.

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

[u]My Blog:[/u] http://freshclipmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

[u]My youtube channel:[/u] http://www.youtube.com/user/FreshClipMedia