Thea for SketchUp: Quicktip Videos

[george]

Hi George,
I know it's an old post, but do you still have this example scene or was this replaced with the Thea Volume model released last year?

Hi Duane. This has to do with the latest forum upgrade. I will see if I can find the file or enabling skp file uploading on the forum.

Greetings,
George

[duanekemp]

That is clear and obvious. What I was curious about was the model itself. Being an older post, I was interested if there was a nice little surprise that I wasn't aware of.

I'm reminded of a render by Seanser of a Spaceship made in Blender and have always kept my eye out for tricks of how he made the glare/bloom blue flame in Thea here. Recently I got a closer look I saw it was just reflections of the inner walls of the reactor bells. But, none the less, I'm still looking for solutions to doing this "look" (a faked simulated particle system blue flame) for my own sci-fi models.

I couldn't find his post in the forum.... so a FB link will do.
https://scontent-frt3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=5BB3DE65

It's why I keep my eyes open for any little tidbits I've missed when I come along them.

[george]

Forum now displays .skp files. You should be able to download the file now.

Greetings,
George

[duanekemp]

Thank you George,

Opened it, confirmed what it is and understand that I'm up to date.

Much appreciated.

[Rombout]

That is clear and obvious. What I was curious about was the model itself. Being an older post, I was interested if there was a nice little surprise that I wasn't aware of.

I'm reminded of a render by Seanser of a Spaceship made in Blender and have always kept my eye out for tricks of how he made the glare/bloom blue flame in Thea here. Recently I got a closer look I saw it was just reflections of the inner walls of the reactor bells. But, none the less, I'm still looking for solutions to doing this "look" (a faked simulated particle system blue flame) for my own sci-fi models.

I couldn't find his post in the forum.... so a FB link will do.
https://scontent-frt3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=5BB3DE65

It's why I keep my eyes open for any little tidbits I've missed when I come along them.

I made something like that a while back. There was a problem with it though if i remember well. The trick had something to do with a single sided material. Ye this isnt supported by Presto.

Ill check if can find that scene again.

PS looking at that image, its indeed reflection on the metal. He also uses Flares in post pro and perhaps has added either a soft medium box or has done post work on it. A super simple trick is using planes with a very faint clipping mask

[Rombout]

I could find the scene no more, but i made a quick doodle. I test some different methods and got quite a nice one. The problem we have with a mesh emitter is that the edges will always be hard, unless you take a couple planes and copy rotate them in a circle. Then you can have a soft falloff. This is also a nice trick to make very easy smoke btw.

What i did is, i made a cone shape and gave it a mask ID. Then i used Quick BSD mask render to render the Mask ID for the cone. I took this into photoshop and manually panted a soft fallow, so the edges arent not hard any more. The way this trick now works is combining emitting material, with real glass. But dont use the reflection, only the refraction. Because of his the matearial is more see through then a regular emitting material, btw this is set to passive. This renders faster and we dont need al the calculations Then use we need to use clipping, soft enabled, so we can make the edges have a soft fall off. Now comes the usage for the mask id which is manually painted. We use this textures and set the mapping to camera. BEcause the mask ID is rendered from the proper camera angle we can use this now as perfect mask. So i added the adjusted mask id to the clipping section and set its mapping to camera, then pick the current camera.

[Rombout]

If you do a bit of post work and add a displacement effect on the after burner. You can fake the heat coming from the engine, this was really quick. Cant remember the proper method so i improvised.

Edit
I remembered this tut i watched once. I added this one top for smaller details in the heat effect

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/v/MKDzL01uI6c[/youtube]
We cant embed youtube as it seems, just click the link

[duanekemp]

Rombout!!!!!!

This is exactly the area of my interest and this is just too dang cool for a doodle! Yes. Thank you!

[Rombout]

Rombout!!!!!!

This is exactly the area of my interest and this is just too dang cool for a doodle! Yes. Thank you!

Here's the packed scene so you can see how its done. Remember the workflow, it's a bit of work but if done properly the results are quite nice.

Also for each new camera angle you would need to redo the Mask ID part and manually paint the Mask ID so it has a soft fall off near the edges. The more black has, the more see through it will become. You can also leave out the glass, but this give the see through effect without adjusting the mask alread so i left that in. If you want real emitting one, then turn off passive.

Here's a quick example with active emitter material, i boosted it to 15000

[duanekemp]

Rombout, When you want to be, you are a real sweetheart! Good man! Thank you.

I can see this solution for a single fixed camera position and why it wouldn't be appropriate for animation or movement. But, I think we are getting close and closer to what I've been wanting now since I first got Thea (thinking it could already do this).

Again, thank you so much.