Twilit Tutorials
Main Tutorial Page
trueSpace
Atmospheres
Shields
Glowing Spheres
Photoshop
Mystic Mist
Coming Soon
Something,
I'm not sure what
|
Shields Up! tutorial version 1.1 December 16, 2000 Software used trueSpace 4 Files Used Shield.zip. |
|
Before you start with this one, let me tell you that there are some draw backs to this process. First and foremost is the need for tight control over your lighting in the scene. The way these shields work is that they are lit-up from the OUTSIDE, so the lights that you need to brighten up your space craft need to be INSIDE the shields. All of this can get a little cramp. |
|
Okay, before you get started with your shields you need a space ship. After your done with that you will need to apply you ship lights. To you right is a simple ship with a simple lighting scheme. These are just simple spot lights, streched, pulled and arranged so that they give uniform coverage to the entire ship. You may definately wish to change that but please note that the lights will not affect anything outside of the shields, more on that latter. |  |
|
Now on to the Shields
The shields are made up of three different spheres that are very close in size with the outer sphere being about 2% larger then the middle sphere which in turn is about 2% larger then the inner sphere. You don't have to be exact but if you look at the lighting image above you can see how close in size the three spheres are. The outer sphere does most of the work, catching the light and adding abit of bump. The middle sphere adds a little consitancy to the shields, evenly spreading the light, while the inner sphere catches any left over light, preventing it from forming "Hot Spots" on the ship. |
|
Shield Materials
The inner sphere is your light catcher, an invisable sphere that will cast shadows. To create the shader use Caligari Phong, all setting at zero except Transmission at 1, for the Reflectance. Color use Plain Color (255,255,255), Transparencey use None, Displacement use None. Note that the light catching properties of the inner sphere works in BOTH directions, so light sources outside the shields will not affect the objects inside the shields, while lights inside the shields have the same problem affecting objects outside. Also note that it might be possible that shadows will be cast on objects close to the oustide of the shields. The outer two spheres are made of very simular materials. For Reflectance use Glass (see settings below), Color use Plain Color (255,255,255), Transparencey use None. The outer sphere uses Casting (see settings below) for the Displacement while the middle sphere uses None. Additionaly you need to set the render properties for each sphere to cast shadows but NOT to accept shadows. | |
Glass settings for Middle Sphere
|
Settings for Outer Sphere
|
|
Lighting it Up
Now you might have noticed that there is no real color for the shields. The color of the shields comes from the color of the light source hitting it. As for the light source itself, you will need to play around with the settings yourself. All of this is very dependant on how large the shields are and how far the light is away from the shields. Adjusting the focus of the light will change the coverage of light on the shields, too little and the shields cover everything, too much and there is just a small hot spot that realy doesn't look like a shield. Also the intensity of the light needs some attention too. I used a level of 1.97. All in all, you need to use a spot light with the shadows turned on. I prefer to use raytraced shadows as apposed to shadow maps. |
|
That's about it. I know that this tutorial has a lot of generalities, but that is the nature of the beast with this one.
One a finnal note, be sure to render with visabilty turned to Raycast , quality is set to High and that Raytrace is tured on. You can download the scene file in zipped format here. |
| If you have any questions or comments please don't hesitate to contact me at verratta@yahoo.com. You may also use my contact page here. |
A little note about what that means, I do not care if you use the images on this site for your personal use, I encourage it, but under no circumstances is any part of this website to be used for comercial purposses, nor do I want you to claim my work as your own.