Animating a wormhole?

[braj]

Just seeking some advice on animating a spaceship coming out of a wormhole.

[slowtiger]

Look for the wormhole button script in the scripts menu.

Seriously, if you don't have any idea about a scene, search google for examples, do some sketches, and make your own version. Research is an important part of the artistic process.

[braj]

Look for the wormhole button script in the scripts menu.

Seriously, if you don't have any idea about a scene, search google for examples, do some sketches, and make your own version. Research is an important part of the artistic process.

Wow, thanks, you are so incredibly helpful.

[braj]

So this is what I have mocked up right now, I don't know how 'wormhole' like it is actually, more like entering warp drive:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/930 ... rmhole.mp4

[DK]

They used Lightwave in the old Babylon 5 series and to create wormholes they used just polygons mapped with a painting of a wormhole image and some cool volumetric particle effects. I can't see why the same technique could not be recreated in AS.

Cheers
D.K

[dkwroot]

I took a crack at it and this was my result. Basically, I just used bone influences to give a slow spinning distortion to a bunch of spirals. I used brush textures for a gassy look. I also applied a particle effect to the center to give it a hotspot.

Whenever you do space scenes, I would highly suggest avoiding the forward view. You typically want to put things at an angle to give the composition a sense of depth.




FILE: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwzk-f ... sp=sharing

[DK]

This might be a good guideline for a Wormhole?


I would be using a few hand painted alpha images and 3-4 image planes in AS offsetting your z depth for perspective under a group layers so you can resize the whole thing opening and closing. That is how they did it in Lightwave 3D the old days

Cheers
D.K

[chucky]

you could try particles with a torus shaped source....

[DK]

Not as nice as the pic in my previous post but here's a rough wormhole effect using AS brushes.
File

http://www.creativetvandmedia.com/Forum/wormhole.anme

Cheers
D.K

[slowtiger]

DK: You got me thinking. Here's a version using 12 bitmaps with a hole in the middle:
http://www.slowtiger.de/examples/wurmloch5.mov (its a loop)

Round 3D stuff is always hard to create in AS, but this was relatively simple.
- Import all images, set all images x origin to 6.
- Set images' y angle to multiples of 3: -3, -6, -9° ...
- Put images into group folder, multiply two times, set folder's x origin to 6, y angle to 36° and 72°. The setup should now look like this:

- Set camera z to 0.
- Put all 3 group folders into new group folder, set x origin to 6.
- Animate y angle of this top folder. Make it a cycle.
- Roll camera.

The main part of the trick is to offset the origin point of all layers so any rotation around this will look OK.

[neeters_guy]

Thanks! These are wonderful ideas!

[braj]

Thanks slowtiger, that was WAY more helpful! After a bit of headscratching I figured out your explanation, I'm rendering my first go at it now, there is some testing I'll have to do to get the right look for my animation, but the technical bit is taken care of now, it looks great and should be effective, my son at least won't laugh at how it looks I think

So, I'm reading The Illusion of Life and am really jealous of those Disney guys that had so many people to bounce ideas off of and get mentoring, and am just glad this forum exists so we can get a little of that camaraderie. I appreciate the help immensely. I'll try posting my first screen test of the effect soon.

[braj]

So here's my test, the shot isn't planned and I just used a static frame inside my video editor for the space ship, and animated it there. but I think it looks great and after working on it more, designing the art for the wormhole better and planning the shot properly, I will have something nice to watch. (I just did a screen test with my kid and he approves)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/930 ... 20Test.mp4

[chucky]

Great effect Braj.
I would suggest one thing to make the sequence work a lot better.

Cut earlier between shots, so that the edit goes right at the movement of the rocket.
Then the next shot of the wormhole should match the general left to right position of the rocket/wormhole - so basically just flip the view that you have now.
Also if you can make the start of the second shot have some equally sharp movement ( the wormhole appearing into being perhaps with the rocket simultaneously moving into shot ), that would make the transition between the two shots much more fluid and natural.

Try using the add layer blending mode on your wormhole layers combined with a slightly reduced transparency , if it works you can get some great glowing light looks with that method. This might not work , but definitely worth a try.

[braj]

Yeah, I just threw the pic of the spaceship in front of the effect so you could get an idea of what exactly was going through the wormhole The whole thing needs work but slowtiger's method of creating the wormhole physics is genius. I'll definitely mess with the layer blending, thanks for the suggestion. There was also a method of creating kaleidoscopes on the forum a few days ago that I plan to mess with, not in creating the wormhole itself but the sequence leading up to the ship entering the hole. Interstellar got high praise from physicists for portraying the externals of the wormhole pretty realistically so I am going to try and get some sort of similar effect, if only to pass the muster of my son's high scientific expectations