Laser beam in Maya

Archanex

hey my buddy wants to make a lazer beam in maya for his assignment that's due on monday, is there anyway to do this given the time restraints? Any help would be appreciated

"now, i dont want glowing bullets...i want a sustained BEAM of destruction"

Thanks

jgarland

I don't use Maya, but I'm sure techniques could be carried across to a different modeling package. How one would go about doing it would vary depending on whether the scene they're for is low poly or high poly.

If he's creating a low poly environment, I'd just create a two-sided plane, and apply a texture to it. The texture would, of course, have some alpha transparency. Then I'd add a few other smaller planes around the beam using the same texturing technique.

For a high poly scene, I'd use some sort of particle system. I'm not all that familiar with particle systems, so I can't give you much help, but I'm sure there are some tutorials that can give a basic explanation of how to use them to some extent. Do a bit of searching.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Sage

You can also use a volume light, either a spotlight linked to a target or distant light. Tell him to do a search in the tutorials.

Alex

Vailias

2 cylinders one much smaller diameter than the other
create 2 ramp shaders, have facing angle be the input. ramp transparency up, color solid , and incandescence down (ie incandescence should be black to the left bright color to the right.)
turn up the glow a little and name your shader,apply to outer tube.
Duplicate it, change the color and incandescence colors to either nearly white with some of your outer color, in it or a little of it opposite. apply to inner tube.

use laser.

Geezus

frickin' laser beams!