Shader Questions

Spudnik

Hey guys,

I'm using Maya 2012 and I had a couple of questions regarding shaders:

First of all, how can I produce a hologram shader like the one in this cinematic starting at roughly 1:00min in. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7shAQeCHPIg"]StarCraft 2: Opening Assault on Char in 1080p - YouTube[/ame] I don't really care about the head splitting into 3 different heads on the x axis at random intervals, and more about the scan lines that are racing across the face.


The second shader I'm looking into making is a cloaking shader like the one seen in this video at 0:20min and again at 2:10min as well as in the second one at 1:30min. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3ZiBkotXlQ"]Starcraft 2 Game Cinematic HD (8/18) (Spectre Route) - A Better Tomorrow.avi - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSnihdfh7kg"]Starcraft II: WoL - Nova - Cinematic - YouTube[/ame] The way I thought about approaching this one was to use 3 different shaders, the normal one, a grid or beehive shader and a glowing red material. Then, using animated facing ratios I'd run each texture over the body from the core to the edges of the model. For example, for decloaking, all you'd see at first is a red glow that moves outward from the point of origin and races to the visible edges of the model followed closely by the beehive texture doing the same motion which lastly is replaced by the actual texture. This was just my initial idea and I'm very open to any and all ideas that you guys have because chances are you're much more experience in this than me

The third question is a bit simpler:
Is there a process similar to this tutorial (http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?149648-Fake-easy-rim-shader-for-game-engine) for Maya where you can map a circular texture to an object to create the illusion of back lighting?

Thanks in advance!

passerby

whats your target game engine,

the holograph shader are extremely easy to make in udk and pretty cheap too.

you mention maya but im kinda confused why you would want the effect in olny maya.

the cloaking is very easy in udk also but i really cant continue on with more till i know what game engine your making stuff for.

Spudnik

No game engine, just Maya. The backstory here is that I'm making a cinematic based on the game. All the animation is done in Maya.

.morph3us

i'd do it in after effects...
this way you dont have to render out the effect every time you want to change something.

Spudnik

I thought about it, it would probably be easier for the static/holo effect, but for the cloaking, the shader the cloaking pattern actually wraps around the geometry so it would be incredibly painful to do that in post I would think.

.morph3us

maybe render out a pass with just that nano hexagon pattern and overlay it in ae.
just a solid black and white to fit ontop of your original footage and then add a ton of effects on it.

so you'd basically have 4 footages layered over another:

CloakEffect
Character
Shadows
Background

You'd need to time the fade in and fade out of all those layers coorectly then...

Spudnik

I would do that in a heart beat, if it weren't for the fact that the cloaking also has a bit of fog going on so I'm kinda of afraid of having to render out the same thing 4-5 times (once for each layer) which will be a lot of time and I don't have access to a render farm (yet...). I don't have nearly as much experience in AE as I do in Maya and don't have a lot of experience in post production in general, so I can't really judge if it would be better to do it all in Maya or AE but I'm leaning towards maya just because I'm more comfortable with it. That said, if there's a clear reason to go with one or the other, I'll do it in a heartbeat.


What about the other two things I asked about, making a rim shader from a circular texture and the holo effect? Anybody got any more ideas/suggestions for me?

Spudnik

Bumping this. Help me Poly Wan Countobi, you're my only hope.

equil

you can use the facing ratio node and connect it to a ramp texture, which you connect to emission.

Spudnik

Sorry, could you elaborate? What are you referring to ?