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A Warp Star Tutorial by D.M.S. Introduction As unique as the fractal noise jumpgates are to Babylon 5, so are the color-shifting warp stars to Star Trek. The following technique was created after numerous not-so-successful attempts, some of which worked but were too inconvenient to be useful. The goal was to create fully animatable, quick-rendering, color-shifting warp stars without using blurs or plugins. This will help eliminate any extra steps of compositing that were necessary with the blur methods. This tutorial is basic, but requires at least some general knowledge of Lightwave. Part I - Modeling  Modeling
begins simply with the "RandPoints" plugin [Tools>Custom]. Create
10 points using the "Constant" and "Sphere" options.  The
stars need to be large enough to fly a decently sized ship through,
so scale [Shift+h] the 10 points up to 65,000%. The "RandPoints" plugin tends to create very unbalanced and uneven point clusters, so the existing 10 points need to be duplicated a few times to even them out. Copy [c] the existing points. (Make sure you're in point edit mode [Ctrl+g].)  Rotate [y] the points approximately 120 degrees on the Z axis.  Paste [v].  Rotate the points again on the Z axis, approximately 120 degrees.  Paste. There should now be a somewhat evenly-dispersed, yet random cluster of 30 points.  Scale [h] the object to 150% on the Z axis.  Move the points approximately 1km on the Z+ axis, making sure that all the points are on the Z+ side of the grid.  Clone [Ctrl+c] the object 124 times with a Z offset of 1.25km. If all goes according to plan, there will now be a cylinder consisting of 3,750 points.  Jitter [Shift+j]
all of the points using the Gaussian setting at X=400m, Y=400m,
Z=700m. Jittering the Z axis more will let the 125 separate point
clusters blend together better to look like only one. Run the "Points2Polys" plugin [Tools>Custom]. This must be done in order for Layout to render anything since it cannot render the points by themselves.  On a new layer, create a Disc with X=200m, Y=200m, Z=160km. This will be used to punch a hole through the middle of the stars so that they will not intersect a ship flying through them. Make sure the disc intersects the points as shown in the image above.  Go back to the points layer, and show the disc layer in the background. Use a "Boolean:Subtract" [Shift+b] to remove the inner stars. Delete the disc, it is no longer needed. In polygon editing mode [Ctrl+h], give the stars a surface [q] called "warpstars". Copy [c]. These polygons will be used again in a moment. Extrude [Shift+e] these points 0m. This will simply double the number of points by turning everything into two-point polygons 0m long. This will be used as the base object, and by itself will render as individual one-point polygons. Safe the object as "warpstars_off.lwo". Go to an empty layer and paste [v] the original star tube.  Extrude these polygons to 1km. This object will be used as the morph target so that it will be easy to control and animate the length of the stars. Save this object as "warpstars_on.lwo". Part II - Layout Setup In Layout, load both objects. Set the "Grid" size (lower left corner) to 50m by hitting the "[" key a few times. It will probably be necessary to reset the camera's location to X=0m, Y=0m, Z=0m, since it was most likely moved automatically when the objects were loaded. For the "warpstars_on.lwo" object, set it's "Dissolve" to 100% [Objects Panel]. There will never be a need for it to be seen. For the "warpstars_off.lwo" object, set it's "Morph Target" [Objects Panel] to "warpstars_on.lwo" and set the "Morph Amount" to 100%. Under the "Appearance Options" tab, set the "Distance Dissolve" to 6.5 km. This will make the stars fade in as they get closer to the camera. Without this setting, all of the stars are seen in the distance, not giving a very desireable result. Next set the "Polygon/Line Size" to "Small". Part III - Surfacing Go to the "Surfaces" panel and make sure the "warpstars" surface is selected. Leave the initial color value at R=200, G=200, B=200.  Add
a color texture by hitting the "T" on the "Surface Color" level.
Make it a "Planar Image Map" on the Y axis. For the "Texture Image"
choose a color spectrum like the image on the right. (If you don't
have one, download one or create one.) Check "World Coordinates". This will make texture always stay where it is, and the stars will move through it giving the color shift. Set the "Texture Opacity" to 35%, and for the "Texture Size" enter the values X=250m, Y=250m, Z=250m. Hit "Use Texture". Give the surface a "Luminosity" value of 60%, then hit the "T" to give it a texture as well. Make the texture a fractal noise with an "Opacity" of 50%. Texture size should be set to X=500m, Y=500m, Z=500m. Set the "Texture Value" to 100%. Hit "Use Texture". This will allow the stars' brightness to be varied instead of them all being exactly the same. Lastly, set the "Transparency" value to 40%, check "Double Sided", and under the "Advanced Options" tab set the "Glow Effect" to 20%.  Part IV - Rendering In the Camera panel, set the "Antialiasing" to "Medium". In the Effects panel, under the "Image Processing" tab check "Enable Glow Effect" and set the "Glow Radius" to 12 pixels. Save the scene and all the objects. That's it. In the Render panel, make sure the "Render Display" is set to QV, then do a test render [F9]. It shouldn't take more than 20-30 seconds to process. The renders will look much better after loading in a starfield for a background. (See the "Better Starfields" tutorial for more details, coming soon.) Issues, Problems, & Improvements This technique can be enhanced further by adding two more star tubes, each larger, shorter, and slower moving than the original. Combine these with a couple of moving tubes made up of normal stars (not warping) for more depth and variety.  The Glow Effect is completely arbitrary here of course, however too much glow can easily destroy the subtleness of this effect. The Glow Effect, Luminosity, and color saturation of the warp stars will have a significant effect on how the final image is displayed depending on screen type. Computer screens will be sharper, clearer, and therefore more precise as far as color and "bleeding", so the primary concern in that case would be image brightness and Gamma. NTSC monitors will be slightly blurred, and tend to oversaturate brighter colors which can come out with the warpstars. Antialiasing can become an issue with this technique. Whereas Medium is usually adequate for television among other things, the small Polygon/Line Size can become noticeably jagged at times. Even high AA may be slightly noticeable on lower quality video output devices. In this case, bluring or softening the stars may help, either in Lightwave or a video editing program. Antialiasing Test Results (Notice how all the enhanced mode renderings are almost identical.)
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