Star Trek TOS Movie Warp Drive How?

[Lightwave Fan]

Please can someone point me in the right direction as for a while now I have been searching all over the web looking for clues in CG forums as to how you would achieve the elaborate Warp Drive VFX in ST1-4. Specifically the trailling Red & Blue Warp lights as the Enterprise approaches the camera and does a fly-by @ Warp Speed. Basically something which generates a glowing whispy trail like shape of the Enterprise.

Is there anyway to create this in Lightwave 7.5 (I know I could do something in After Affects but really wanna do it all in LW).

I have tried various experiments with parenting multiple Light arrays to nulls positioned on the Warp Nacelles & Main Hull but these do not give the desired effect (when used in conjunction with large amounts of Motion Blur).

I really would appreciate some feedback from the Pro's as to whether or not this is viable in LW or is it strictly something that is easier to do as a post-pro VFX.

It's only for a personal hobby movie I am trying to do. Nothing commercial.

Many thanks in advance.

[Mylenium]

Ther is a image filter from DStorm Shanghai that mimics the AfterFX Echo effect within LW. It uses Special buffers and thus will create trails based on surfaces from within LW. Look it up on Flay.

Mylenium

[jeremyhardin]

why not just render out the scene using motion blur, particle blur, and vector blur.
then composite a non-blurred on it in LW?

[Lightwave Fan]

Originally posted by jeremyhardin
why not just render out the scene using motion blur, particle blur, and vector blur.
then composite a non-blurred on it in LW?

Thanks for the tips but I should have explained that in the scene the Enterprise is moving say from screen right to screen left and also changing size as it gets closer to camera. Compositing is not really practical as they may be as many as 500 plus frames of the animation.

What I really need/desire is a way to let LW do it all @ the rendering stage as my background may contain either hyperspace stars or a Galactic Nebula.

I have attached an image of what I managed to achieve by using motion & particle blur but it is not what I am looking for.

[Mylenium]

What's so impractical about compositing? This is really a no-brainer. Some directional blur, a bit of the echo effect.... Except for needing to create all "lights" in a separate render pass this is simple as hell. You make it sound like something major but it really isn't. BTW, the plugin for LW I already mentioned is called after image.

Mylenium

[Lightwave Fan]

Originally posted by Mylenium
What's so impractical about compositing? This is really a no-brainer. Some directional blur, a bit of the echo effect.... Except for needing to create all "lights" in a separate render pass this is simple as hell. You make it sound like something major but it really isn't. BTW, the plugin for LW I already mentioned is called after image.

Mylenium

Mylenium,

Please can you let me have the url for the Dstorm Shanghai website as I have searched Flay and Dstorm's Japanese website and cannot find the plug-in you mention.

Thanks

[Mylenium]

Sorry, I confused them. AfterImageFilter is from Shift. You may find it here:

http://www.shift.gr.jp/html/staff/plugin.html

Mylenium

[Lightwave Fan]

Thanks for the help guys I have now managed to get something which is approaching what I am trying to achieve.

[VWTornado]

Originally posted by Lightwave Fan
I have attached an image of what I managed to achieve by using motion & particle blur but it is not what I am looking for.

I think this version looks much cooler from an artistic standpoint. :D

[Lightwave Fan]

Originally posted by VWTornado
I think this version looks much cooler from an artistic standpoint. :D

Trouble is that it only works for very quick cuts in the animation like say 10-20 frames. Anything more and depending on your camera angles and shutter exposure it can look horrible. You can get some great looking still frames but as soon as you put some movement into the mix it falls apart.

I prefer the look of the 2nd image I attached. But even then it seems to be heavily dependent on the camera angle.

I'm guessing there must be another way to do it (by it I mean that regardless of camera angle it still looks great in motion) by using either a post process or putting a foreground image of the warp blur only composited over the ship. I may try to do an image sequence next after generating some Warp Blur in AE or PS.

What I really wanted to do is get it all done in 1 LW pass to save doing post as that could be time consuming on 500 plus frames.

[Ralph Keyser]

I'm sure that they used multiple passes to get this effect in the movie, so you should do the same thing. You can probably do it in two passes where they used five (or more). This type of compositing is really not hard since you are generating both passes (one with the effect, and the other with just the object). Merging them is easy in any NLE or After Effects. It's not like compositing into live action footage or anything, which really can be hard.

It's just important to realize that not all effects that you are after can be generated in a single pass with Lightwave.

[VWTornado]

Originally posted by Ralph Keyser
It's just important to realize that not all effects that you are after can be generated in a single pass with Lightwave.

I saw a making of special for the first Tomb Raider movie. The beginning sequence with the robot she fights took something like 15 different layers to achieve. One for shadows, one for the robot, one for smoke, one for this and that, etc...It was crazy. But the end result was awesome, and thats all that matters. The end result. :)