ST Phaser fire

[Max Payne]

Yes another thread about this ;) i used the search funktion but didnt found anything i can use..

So my question...I want to make some animation with a starship which is fireing like star trek ships...ok i tried it with a star trek model and a tube with a nice texture ;) Look at this (http://tiberium-war.net/voy.avi).

Looks good, but then i saw the movie Star Wreck (www.starwreck.com) and their effect looks more like a beam (more transparent etc.). here an example (http://www.starwreck.com/pages/cgi2.html).

Has anybody tipps to make my effect better?

[Skinner3D]

You can do it using a particle emitter that spawns one particle per unit of time. You can then shade the particle to look like anything. There have been a couple of threads were this technique was used. I think the AT-ST thread had something like this.:)

[jeremyhardin]

volumetric distant lights also do this well and are not too complex in the scene.

[Defiance]

Don't forget Dave Jerrard's old laser tutorial technique. It's two long quad polygons, which are rotated 90 degrees from each other along the long axis (so when you look at the cross section of the beam, it's an X). Apply a planar mapped image to the cross section (use a rendered out lens flare without streaks) to the luminosity or transparency channel, then change the colors by applying some kind of procedural. Add some texture velocity along the long axis for the procedural to simulate the little specks of light moving along. Turn on additive transparency. This should give a pretty good looking beam.

[Pirk]

Yep, I used the old Jerrard's trick. A spinning set of eight crossed planes :)
-Samuli Torssonen (Star Wreck SFX guy)