by Paul Hempsall
SURFACING THE SHOCKWAVE
Now that the modeling is out of the way, we can pursue the creation of the surface attributes. This process is somewhat tedious, but it's most definitely worth it. The method behind the surface application is as follows: -
1. Create the colour fractal noise assignments, establishing an easy degradation of colour from a bright white to a darker red (the colours described can obviously be substituted to supply an alternative look).
2. Create luminosity fractal noise assignments to compliment the colour fractal noise. This is accomplished simply by copying the values from step 1, with the addition of a "texture value" which decides the brightness for the surface. By applying the exact fractal noise assignments corresponding with their partners in step 1, we ensure that the luminosity will effect the correct fractal colour.
3. Lastly we apply the transparency fractal noise so that the object will fade to black using licking flames. One must ensure that by the end of the objects length the surface is transparent, otherwise lines may become apparent showing the edge of the object (ultimately ruining the illusion.)
Velocity values will be assigned so that the flames appear to move. This really makes the object come alive.
O.K. that's enough preparation, let's get down to work:
Open Lightwave Layout with a clean workspace. Select the Object button located at the top left of the screen and choose Load Object from the resulting requester. Pick Shock.lwo. Repeat the process to load the Shockring.lwo file.
Make the current object Shock.lwo and inform Lightwave that its Target Object is Shockring.lwo. Set the Morph Amount to 100%.
Make the current object Shockring.lwo and set the Object Dissolve to 100% (found within the Appearance Options tab). We have now completed the process telling Lightwave to morph from Shock.lwo to Shockring.lwo. This will successfully bend the surface attributes from Shock.lwo (when we apply them) into the form of Shockring.lwo. Because we have told the dissolve value of Shockring.lwo to be 100% the object will not appear - but only Shock.lwo in its molded state...does that make sense?
Choose Close Panel and you will be returned to the Layout workspace with a nice morphed Shock.lwo apparent. Move the camera into a suitable viewing position, preferably a wide shot that isn't too close to the object.
Click on the Surfaces button at the top of the screen. The Surfaces Panel appears (how strange?). Anyway, make sure that the current surface is Shockwave (remember we specified this in modeler?) and change the object colour to 255,175,28 by clicking on the Surface Colour button and inputting the values in the resulting requester. You will now have a nice orange coloured surface. Ensure that Smoothing is checked and that Double-sided is not. The next thing to do is to add some Fractal Noise textures, starting with some colour fractals.
Click on the "T" for texture button corresponding to Surface Colour. I will walk you through the first application of values for this first Fractal Noise texture, then you can continue with the supplied values.
To render your object at anytime to see the progress of the texture building just press "F9", you will be brought back to the surfacing panel after it has rendered.
Change the Texture Type to Fractal Noise. Click on the Texture Colour button and set the values to 255,255,255. Ensure that Frequencies is equal to 3, Texture Opacity is 100% and that WORLD CO-ORDINATES IS NOT TICKED...I emphasize this because if this is ticked it will wreck the appearance of the texture. Then click on the Texture Size button. Match the values shown in the picture below and then click on OK.
These values are large but remember, so is our object!
The next thing to do is center our texture, so click on the appropriate button (Texture Center). Set the values as X=50 km, Y=0 m, Z=10 km. Click on the Texture Falloff button. Set the values as X=0,Y=0,Z=0.005. The texture falloff makes the strength of the texture fade out slowly along the tail.
Finally, set the Texture Velocity values to X=10m,Y=25m,Z=-75m. Texture velocity makes the texture flow through an animation. By making the other axis values change the fractal noise will curve, however by setting one axis change alone, we would force the texture to run in that direction only. These values can be hard to tweak. The values I have set will work fine (if you have made your objects at the same scale as me!) but feel free to experiment for different effects.
OK that's one texture down. Click on Add New Texture and then input the following textures.
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=7km,Z=7km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=10km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.002
Texture Velocity: X=-50m,Y=10m,Z=-1km
Texture Colour: 221,255,28
Frequencies: 2
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=15km,Z=15km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=10km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.007
Texture Velocity: X=10m,Y=-20m,Z=-20m
Texture Colour: 253,253,253
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=6km,Z=6km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-10km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.002
Texture Velocity: X=0m,Y=0m,Z=-50m
Texture Colour: 255,208,100
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=7km,Z=7km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-60km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.0009
Texture Velocity: X=0m,Y=0m,Z=-1.5km
Texture Colour: 255,122,43
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=8km,Z=8km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-80km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.0004
Texture Velocity: X=0m,Y=0m,Z=-1.5km
Texture Colour: 254,77,24
Frequencies: 3
O.K. that's it for the colour fractal textures, select Use Textures. Now for the luminosity textures. Click on the "T" button corresponding to Luminosity. Adjust the values as follows:
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=10km,Z=10km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=10km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.005
Texture Velocity: X=10m,Y=25m,Z=-75m
Texture Value: 180.1%
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=7km,Z=7km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=10km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.002
Texture Velocity: X=-50m,Y=10m,Z=-1km
Texture Value: 50%
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=15km,Z=15km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=10km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.007
Texture Velocity: X=10m,Y=-20m,Z=-20m
Texture Value: 160.2%
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=6km,Z=6km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-10km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.002
Texture Velocity: X=0m,Y=0m,Z=-50m
Texture Value: 80.1%
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=8km,Z=8km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-80km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.0004
Texture Velocity: X=0m,Y=0m,Z=-1.5km
Texture Value: 80.1%
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=7km,Z=7km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-60km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.0009
Texture Velocity: X=0m,Y=0m,Z=-1.5km
Texture Value: 60.2%
Frequencies: 3
And that's the end of the Luminosity Fractal Noise Textures, so click on Use Texture. Finally click on the "T" button corresponding to transparency.
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=10km,Z=10km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-100km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.001
Texture Velocity: X=10m,Y=0m,Z=-1.25km
Texture Value: 180.1%
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=7km,Z=7km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-100km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.0015
Texture Velocity: X=-15m,Y=0m,Z=-1.5km
Texture Value: 150%
Frequencies: 3
Texture Type: Fractal Noise
Texture Opacity: 100%
Texture Size: X=250m,Y=5km,Z=5km
Texture Center: X=50km,Y=0m,Z=-100km
Texture Falloff: X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=0.005
Texture Velocity: X=0m,Y=0m,Z=-1.75km
Texture Value: 200%
Frequencies: 3
Phew!!! That's it for the textures. Press "F9" to view it.
Make sure that you save everything NOW!!! You won't regret it. Play around with the shockwave for a while and then I suggest to experiment changing some of the parameters eg. Texture size, object velocity to see what you get.
To animate it (presumably as a ring expanding outward) you could simply size the object upward over a certain amount of frames. However this does produce a side affect which is rather distasteful, that is it not only makes the ring larger but also the width of the ring. In this case I would suggest making a third shockwave object molded from Shock.lwo, this time using the pivot point of the bend tool a lot further away from the object. See the diagrams below for an illustrated explanation.
A good way to introduce the Shockwave object is hidden behind an intense flash of light from perhaps ah.... an exploding planet? This would be achieved using lens flares with a very high intensity. Then one would morph from the original Shockring.lwo to the larger one, gradually fading the object towards the end of the animation...something like this: -
The animation below shows the velocity values at work: -
OK that's it, I hope this tutorial was helpful. Please drop me a line to let me know how you went with it, or if there are any discrepancies.
Paul Hempsall - jedi@weitech.com.au
Visit my web site at http://jedi.weitech.com.au
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