Maya : Lightsabers and Rendering Techniques

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

Go to highend3d.com and do a plug-in search for Sky.mll (or just search for Sky). It's a pretty good "fake GI" if you just want to show off a fancy model. I don't think I'd use it for a production, since it jacks up your rendering by an insane amount.

You can get rid of the flicker in the glow by turning off auto exposure. There's a section in the Maya docs "Troubleshooting Shader Glow." Just search for 'auto exposure.' It'll tell you what you have to do.

[beaker]

Your going to spend 5x as much time doing a lightsabre in maya. It is so much faster to just rotoscope it. Don't do things the hard way just because you don't like post. ILM still does it frame by frame because it is the fastest method that looks the best. KISS: Keep it simple stupid (no offense meant there).

>>I know rotoscoping is the most common method for creating lightsaber effects, but I really hate post.

If you hate post then your in the wrong biz. The amount of time doing things in post will save you is phenomenal. I know many companies that have tried to just skip over post because they thought it was bothersome. Well they missed many deadlines and soon learned that you can't do anything without. Unless you want to be working at a rate of $5 an hour because of all the time you waste.

[alexx]

wise words beaker, wise words :)

and btw:
once you started doing stuff in post, you will like it.
i swear!

your pics and animations will look so much better than what you could get out of 3D alone.

cheers

alexx

[playmesumch00ns]

It's so true! Render EVERYTHING in seperate passes. It's amazing how much you can change the look and feel of a shot in Shake (or whatever you use) and in like a squillionth of the time it would take to do in Maya.

[boomji]

hey dude,
i said that my self when i first began...mann did i have a tough time.post is your best ally even when many 3d softwares now a days are providing many filters within the package.
all the same if you need help in afx just holler ;)
b

[kamsvag]

A simple way to create a lightsaber, not exactly the same look as in starwars is to use the 'lightning effect' in maya. It can be adjusted so it only flickers verry slightly and you will see it while you animate, it will also light up the surrounding environment. You can also animate the lenght of the 'blade' very easy is you set it up using the 'lighting effect' in maya. It's sone in a few mouse clicks.

Cheers!

[TiKiMoN]

Well... ok, maybe things are more intimidating when you don't really have a lot of experience with them.

My take on rotoscoping the lightsabers is that, sure, you could have a dummy saber (one colored in such a way that it easily sticks out in the environment, easily rotoscoped) or even make a lightsaber core pass where just the core and its reflections/shadows are recorded. (That is an interesting thought.. do lightsabers cast shadows??) But the color of the saber fails to saturate clothing, characters, environment... the way it seems to me is that it only shows up in reflections and the glow is "pasted" on top of the frame. Why wouldn't a green saber cast a green tint onto the person holding it? It looks as though they did a little of that with Yoda in Episode II, but for the main characters, it seems as if it does nothing.

I suppose I am not opposed to post-processing, but I have a lot to learn about how to use it effectively. If only I could figure out render passes... :surprised

[wedge]

even if you do a cg lightsaber, you won't get glow on your characters, unless you're doing a 100% cg movie.

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

hey wgeddes, nice avatar. I have that poster in my room. :)

[TiKiMoN]

wgeddes : That's the plan. :thumbsup:

[beaker]

A glow in 3d apps are post processes anyways, so they still wouldn't cast that color on other objects.

[TiKiMoN]

beaker : Yes, I realized this a couple of days ago... however, I believe it would be possible to create a shader or light system to do what I would like it to do. At least, I am going to try to see if it is possible. I found the neon light shader in the shader library... does anyone know if that would work? I would test it, but I'm too bogged down with work for my job right now. :(

[wedge]

i also have that poster in my room. ;)

[kamsvag]

Is this saber looking like you want it to?

This was all done in maya and set up in just a few clicks on the mouse.

[TiKiMoN]

kamsvag : That is very close! :) But did you use the shader glow attribute, because if so, we have already determined that it will not be visible in reflections or in saturating the surrounding environment. However, I would still like to know what process you used. It looks very nice! :thumbsup: :D

[kamsvag]

Read the earlier post I wrote. I used the lighnting effect, you'll find it in the dynamics mode in maya. I parented two loactors to what would be the handle of the sabre and created the lightning effect between the two of them, dead simple. Then I tweaked it's values, and adjusted the light that were created to have a linear falloff (wich forces you to bump up the intensity value sky high, in this case 40). If you wan't you can make the light cast shadows as well, wich I didn't think bother doing for this pic.

But yes, there is a post glow added when using the lighning effect, wich won't be visible in reflections. If I had to have a glow that should have to be visible in reflections I would proberbly make several layers of geometry with transparency. Though the geometry would be rather heavy and the render time would get a bit nasty.

Hope this guided you somewhat in your creation of a lightsabre.
:thumbsup:

[alexx]

if you think about adding the glow in post anyway, you could render a reflection pass for the saber only.
you can then easily glow all the reflections in post as well..

[TiKiMoN]

Well, it's just not reflections I would like to add, but also color splash from the saber onto the immediate surroundings, like character's body, close set items, etc. I guess I would need a shader that acted as a light source with high dropoff rate.

Anyway, if I ended up doing this in post, how hard would it be to create the color splash effect?

[DesignDawg]

THis has been ignore long enough, so I'll contribute it:

Shaders can NOT illuminate anything in Maya. --At least not without Mental Ray. If you want your light saber to illuminate something, you will need to do it with lights parented to the saber itself.
You really should do the sabers in post. --At least the glow. Again, if you want your sabers to light the scene around them, two things to consier: They don't do it in the original Star Wars movies, and it can't be done with a shader. You'll have to use lights.

Ricky

[TiKiMoN]

DesignDawg : Thanks for the reply. I know that shaders do not cast light... however, it seems like my thought process is a day behind my posting process. :p

At any rate, I thought about it today before reading your post, and I agree that some sort of light will have to be attached. I realize this was not done in the movie series, and I believe that started because it just wasn't done for the first 3 episodes. Since all of the glow is added in post, they thought more about replacing green/blue saber dummies with rotoscoped saber cores. I just noticed one day that it seems like a lightsaber should have influence in the environment, so that was my reasoning for wanting to do it in my animation. I will probably do that in a seperate pass, with just the lightsaber "light" on, and tweak it in post. It seems I'm going to have to learn to love post anyway. :)

[wedge]

designdawg: whats with the porn avatar, dude?

[DesignDawg]

Porn? Whatever do you mean PORN? Why, that's just a picture of FIELDING! ;)

Is the picture neither clear nor brilliant?

Ricky

[beaker]

I wish Maya had Power Animator's linear lights. Not sure why they haven't added them yet. Though, linear lights are just a bunch of point lights close enough together to make a line of light. So you can easily fake them. It would just be more convienent.

[TiKiMoN]

beaker : Thanks... I might try that. Do point lights in Maya have a dropoff rate that can be set like spotlights? If not, maybe I could use a spotlight system for color splash. (?)

[chrisp420]

If you want to do realistic looking lightsabers, use the tutorial from the Duality Movie website. Its crewoftwo.com. Its easy to do. All you need is after effects and commotion, and they look better than the ones in the actual movie

[TiKiMoN]

chrisp420 : I have seen the Duality movie... it inspired me to go ahead with this project, actually. :) However, I was not really thrilled with their sabers. I think maybe because the Quicktime compression made the saber colors lighter. If you look in the Gallery though, the sabers look a lot better.

http://www.crewoftwo.com/gallery/pre-sever_flare.jpg

http://www.crewoftwo.com/gallery/strike.jpg

Anyway, I do not have Commotion, but I do have After Effects. Still, until I am convinced that I cannot produce better results using shaders/lighting network or the lightning tip presented earlier, then I hesitate to do it mostly in post. I will try some things and see what results I get. Thanks for the reminder though... I forgot to look through their tutorials. :)

*EDIT* : You may notice that, in these shots, there is no effect of the blade color onto the surrounding environment. No color splash on the duelers or the ground. This is something I really would like to have in my animation, so that is the reason for trying to find other ways to do this. Just thought I would clarify. :)

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