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Saiato
02-02-2008, 04:29 AM
I'm trying to get the effect of a glowing electric energy ball. Something like what's seen in cartoons a lot today, here's the concept sketch for my project

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/6886/wiibotbw5.jpg

I was hoping to use a shader to do it, but it might involve dynamics, I'm really not sure as I'm still quite new to this. Because I'm going to animate this project, I was hoping for the sphere to have noise or the effect that it is electrically charged. Because I'm new to more in-depth effects like this, I really am not sure where to begin. Here's a render of my first attempt

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/194/conceptsketchposepc1.jpg

Thanks for your help =)

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I'm using Maya8.5 for this project.
mxdirector
02-02-2008, 09:47 PM
i dont know how to do what you are asking. but may i recommend a different material for the robot. a blinn perhaps, you need the highlight to be less spread out.
EquiNOX
02-03-2008, 03:24 PM
If I were you, I'd create Render Element: Specular and Reflection .... and do Layer render In photoshop.... so that the Bluely glow will not effect everything in the scene on a single render. Hope you get what I mean...
Stankluv
02-03-2008, 08:46 PM
a ramp shader into the transparency channel on the sphere would do it. Set the ramp type to fresnel or incidence....not sure on the nameage because I am sitting in front of Lightwave at the moment but I am sure of the ramp>transparency part.

OOORRRR...glowy effects love to be done with particles too.
Dtox
02-04-2008, 12:56 PM
The way I see it in my minds eye, I would go for several layers of brightly colored noise in the self-illum channel in addition to the ramp in the transparency channel.
With the outer most noise layer being the one you animate using parameterization.
You could try using 2 spheres, an inner and outer sphere.

And then add a glow channel to the outside to get that emanating light effect.

I suppose particles could work, but that's not the simplest solution and could bury you in difficulties leading to you starting over or rethinking the effect.
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