How the hell did they do this?
Has anyone seen the beck video E-pro? It's got this really cool retro wireframe look to it ... kinda reminds me of the old amiga games. I was wondering if anyone knew what the approach would be to do something like this? I understand the Beck parts, but I mean the environment is something else, quite trippy. Anyways, here's a link to the video:
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk40OQCsrTI[/ame]
Any opinions?
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk40OQCsrTI[/ame]Any opinions?
Replies
Also, try to use more descriptive thread titles.
Vector graphics. Easy to do in most major 3D apps, in 3ds Max I'd use renderable splines.
Sorry about the title ... it is rather vague. Can I change it in any way? I also fixed the link ... odd because I just watched it on the other one.
I figured it was vector graphics, good call. Can you actually render splines that thick though? The lines look rather thick and have a sort of glow to them.
Ahhh very interesting. I always thought that was a cool look.
Yeah they are fairly tube-shaped aren't they?
Yeah I figured out that much about it. It's moreso the environment itself that I am curious about. I'm suprised no one has done a similar effect at all.
Shynola
Junior Senior is a pretty wild video too, and I actually like the song as well.
I've seen this sort of thing done before on a game called, Vib-Ribbon ... I believe it was for the Ps1. The look is a little more bland since it's all in white vector thingys, but it's more of a music program and definitely a bizarre one at that.
I wanted to experiment with that sort of look because I thought it would be a fun thing to do on the side with 3dsmax. My only conclusion is that they are splines as was written above. They have a little FAQ on their website stating they use PC's, and that Junior Senior was done using Deluxe Paint, lol. Too bad they didn't go into detail about the Beck video ... I saw an interview about the Queens of the Stone Age one as well, it's pretty cool. Oh, and they did Radiohead's Pyramid song ... creepy but awesome video.
I think it's the sounds that threw me off ... they were just a little ... different. But that game has the same look, and I'm not even sure how the heck that one was done either. I'm positive they used some 3dapp to do it though ...
I know what you mean ... I've seen the camera rotate around the character at the end of the level. Can you actually animate splines though? I guess you'd have to rig them or something ... not sure about that one since I've never really heard of something like that being done. but with just regular splines, how did they get that glow effect? It was mentioned above that you can do it post, but I'm sure there's a way you can add something to the spline to make it a bit brighter or something.
By the way, I can't even seem to render a spline in 3dsmax period. I checked the properties and it's all checked for it to be renderable ... I've done it before but can't seem to remember. Anyone know?
Can you post a screenshot of the rendering properties for the spline?
I managed to find out how to render them ... I could've sworn I did it by right-clicking and checking renderable, but I had to do it on the side menu. I also changed the thickness a bit and followed the directions, but it looks off. Here's what it looked like:
You mean just the settings in materials right? Or the materials themselves?
Regarding the video, everything I've looked up on the net points to "neon" which seems like the right track.
Personally I think your glow is too large, so I'd recommend playing with the settings in the lens effect glow dialog (this is not a material setting).
It's more the tube itself I guess. And yeah I agree about the glow being too large ... I made it alot smaller but the smaller it gets, the more it looks like a regular old spline. It's as if the lines themselves have a neon color to them or something, rather than emitting actual light. I could be wrong though, it's hard to tell with that video. And is it me, or are the lines almost see-through? I'm not sure if it was because of the panning.
Here's a site that seems to have a similar looking type of style, but it's in Maya
http://kellerrific.com/paint_effects_wireframe.html
Click to d/l the Max2009 file.
You have to render from Video Post to see it. Check out the filters in there for the effect setups. The edge-blur isn't great in Max, to get Beck's color-separation effect you'll want to use AfterEffects or somesuch.
Will this work in max 8? Perhaps I should've upgraded :P One more question, what do you mean by color-seperation effect? It looks like you got it pretty spot on there from what I see.
In the music video, the colors break apart at the edges of the camera view, so you see a purple/green mix along the edges instead of the regular colors. Kind of like a prism.
Alrighty
This seems to work best for what I'm referring to
Make raytrace material. Do not use the standard material, since it does not give the same results.
Add the color you want to for glow to both luminosity and tranluncency map. You can also add a flourscence map as well.
You can set this material to wire, and the end result is what ever edges are visible show up as a wireframe. You can specify how thick these are too. this saves you from using splines but may not work for your needs.
Set a material id to something other than zero.
I suggest you instance the luminosity map to the other two map slots then set the material id to one. Will save you time.
Add blur under effects. Set the blur setting to 3 for now. Go to the other options and deselect entire image option for the blur. Go to where it says object id set it to one and click on Add. Very important step. set brightness to 100 set brightening to multiplicative and set the blend to 62 or less. Play around.
You can try with the standard material as well but I don't seem to get the same results as with the raytrace material.
Alex
Sorry man, I have no clue what you meant in any of that. I know the terms and everything, but where to put these settings I couldn't see any fields that had what you said. I added a raytrace material, and that's where it ended for me. The whole luminosity and translucency maps or whatever I couldn't find for the life of me, so that sucks. I couldn't even find material ID so I guess that sums it all up for me.
I was going to try it out just to see how this one worked out, but there's just no way.
Oh yeah, here's a screenshot I've found:
Their definitely splines .... the trees have sharp turns for the most part. Oh and Eric, I know what you meant now about the colors, they do seem to change when they go off camera, but that's just a minor little thing anyways.
Notice no blur option in the next picture:
And the finished product?
Where you see Contrast, pick Lens Effect Glow. Hit OK to close the dialog, then double-click the Glow filter event to re-open it (this initializes the internal preview, you'll see). Click the Setup button to start editing the glow.
If you hit Preview, you get the stock image, not good. So hit VP Queue to get a preview of your mesh, ah yeah baby! Change the Source to Whole, then go into Preferences and change the size and intensity.
Well, I still can't seem to get that see-through sort of look that you got .... but I figured all the other stuff out thanks to your guiding. Mine always looks like sticks ... like solid tubes no matter what. And I always have a big glow starting in the middle, but never around it like yours:
Oh by the way, the guys e-mailed me back ... which nearly gave me a heart attack and they were really helpful ... it's just some things are a little hard to understand ... here's what they wrote:
"Hi Eric,
Yeah, if memory serves, we used splines (it was a long time ago!). We found the only way to render them and maintain 1 pixel lines without anti aliasing was to use playblasts, and I think we rendered each shot something like 4 times at half-frame offsets to create motion trails.. although we might have done that as a post effect, I can't really remember. We also simulated chromatic aberrations in post (separated the RGB and warped each channel slightly differently) that were exaggerated towards the edges of the screen to give that worn out arcade monitor effect."
The splines in my quickie used solid materials with no transparency. From the guy's email, it sounds like they didn't use transparency anyhow. Instead its probably the chromatic aberration that's making their lines look transparent.
Yeah I'm using video post ... I noticed the little demo graphic it gives you and switched it over to my own, it's just that my glow seems to always be in the middle.
And yeah I think it's the aberration doing the transparency ... after some searches I found a bit of info, but it was only for "correcting" it.
I'll have a go at the Size spinner again, perhaps I was fiddling too much with it.
EDIT:
I feel like a tool, I was clicking on the wrong Size spinner ... I was using the distance one before and not the actual "Effect" one. I fooled around with intensity as well and this is what I got ... much cooler looking. Now I gotta figure out this color abberation thing ... rendering in a few passes and all that seems strange, but I'm guessing they might have offsetted each pass to give it a weird blur perhaps? That whole RGB thing kinda messed me up as well ... like, I know what they mean by RGB, but what they actually DID with it is over my head. I didn't even know you can render at half a frame or whatever to create trails ... can't seem to find anything on it.
Here's a pic of mine:
Here's a really old scripted render effect plugin that does the color aberration effect.
http://www.pxfactory.eu/scripts/rgbsplit/rgbsplit.html
The basic idea is to render the scene, then take that rendered image and split it into the three RGB channels. Take the Red channel and offset it slightly (like 2 pixels up and left), then offset the Green channel slightly in another direction (like 3 pixels right), then offset the Blue channel some too (like 4 pixels down). Finally, combine those three channels again and you get your final aberrated image.
WarpTexture is another method for the same thing. Here's the Max 7 version.
http://www.maxplugins.de/max7.php?search=warptexture&sort=Author
I haven't used it, but I think if you feed this plugin a warp image that has for example dark gray in the Red channel, medium gray in the Green channel, and light gray in the Blue channel, then it will distort each of the RGB channels of the Target image in a different way. Hope that makes sense.
In Raytrace Basic Parameter section you have the usual suspects
Diffuse, spec, bump, Luminosity( self illumination) map slots. Note you can click on the map name and it toggles other options
In Extended Parameters, click on this header since I think it closed by default there you'll find
Translucency, Flourecence, and Extra Lighting map slots.
To find the add material id channel button, its the icon next to the icon that turns on textures in the viewports, you know it looks like a cube with blue and white checks on it. The icon with a the number 0 (this the default number, looks more like an O to me), left of the icon with that turns on the textures, that lets you assign material id channels. You have to press and hold your mouse button so a drop down shows up.
I see you have are getting your glows to work.
Alex
I downloaded the first one, and I tried to run the maxscript but it doesn't do anything. Am I supposed to go into some menu somewhere? I have no idea where to go. There's no readme or anything with the file, just the vague webpage.
Cool stuff, thanks
Still trying to kill some of that glowy haze though. It looks cool and all, but it's a little much, yet when I go too low on the spinner it's like a really bright flourescent line.
Here's what I have using the RGB Split:
I'm not sure why your settings aren't working for you. Your filter Size and Intensity spinners probably just need more luvin.