I got some pretty good results using the rasteriser and just creating some
randomly placed disks scattered across the sky. The rasteriser kinda works a
bit like Lightwave does with it's one point polygons in that it makes sure
that it always renders them - unlike the conventional renderer which can
sometimes miss them if the pixel subdivisions aren't set high enough (as I
understand it anyway).
Make sure your Pixel Samples are turned up to around 15 so that you can use
the motion blur to create some nice smooth streaks when your camera moves,
that don't take too long to render.
Another quick tip... give the disks a Constant material and set some of the
star colors to be over bright (i.e. greater than 1.0 on the color channel),
that way it'll simulate a real camera in that the brighter stars will be
more visible in the motion blur - it looks much more realistic. Just make
sure you turn off color clipping in the render options.
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of
Joey Ponthieux
Sent: 11 January 2007 14:19
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: Starfield Environment Shader
Try this.
http://maps.jpl.nasa.gov/stars.html
Joey Ponthieux
NCI Information Systems Inc.
NASA Langley research Center
____________________________________________________________
Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
Eric Lampi wrote:
> Paint a greyscale image, use it as a texture map it onto geo, and use
> it as an emission map under the emitter's rate.
>
> You will probably need to generate a lot of them to get the desired
> effect, but it will work If you wnat a more 3D effect, put a little
> speed on the emission with a high varience. Once it looks good
> enough, freeze it.
>
> E
>
> Freelance 3-D Animator, F/X Artist
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Adrian Lopez <liquidlightdigital(at)gmail.com>
> To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
> Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 9:50:55 PM
> Subject: Re: Starfield Environment Shader
>
> Nice suggestion, Joe - I gave it a shot - and it sort of works.
> There's a lack of control, however, that I find unsettling. I cant
> model concentrations of stars, or control the spread in other areas of
> the sky. I suppose you could use textures or weight maps to control
> the emission - but God, its such a struggle.
>
> On 1/10/07, *Joe Laffey* <joe(at)laffey.tv <mailto:joe(at)laffey.tv>> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Wayne Williams wrote:
>
> > I didn't know single point polys existed. Don't you have to have at
> > least 3 for it to be considered a polygon? Otherwise it's a point or
> > line ya?
>
>
> Technically yes, given the etomology of the word (many angles).
>
> I would guess the OP has come from LightWave where there is
> support for
> render single point polygons (which are a distinct entity from
> points) as
> pixels. They work quite well for stars.
>
> As far as making stars in XSI what about making a very large
> sphere set to
> emit particles with speed 0 in its volume.
>
> Like this:
>
>
> CreatePrim "Sphere", "MeshSurface"
> CreateParticleCloud "sphere"
> SetValue "cloud.cloud.ParticlesOp.sphere_emission.Generation", 3
> SetValue "cloud.cloud.ParticlesOp.sphere_emission.Speed", 0
> SetValue "cloud.cloud.ParticlesOp.sphere_emission.Rate ", 20000
> NextFrame
>
> Then set an initial state, or have the rate drop to 0, or
> export/import
> etc.
>
> Then you use one of the particle shaders to get stars, you can
> even give
> them random colors, and random scales, which tend to look very
> good for
> stars.
>
> --
> Joe Laffey | Visual Effects for Film and Video
> LAFFEY Computer Imaging | -------------------------------------
> St. Louis, MO | Show Reel
> http://LAFFEY.tv/?e04117 <http://laffey.tv/?e04117>
> USA | -------------------------------------
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> --
> Adrian Lopez
> CEO | Director | Producer
> Liquid Light Digital
> Kingston, Jamaica
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>
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>
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