Subject: Lasers with Lens Flares
From: [email-masked] (Fernando Martins)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 21:01:06 -0500

Hi to all!

Yesterday I thought about using the technique described in Mojo's 'Simple
Space stuff - Cool tricks from Babylon 5' to simulate lasers beams. Try to
find LightwavePro Sep94 (I guess).

OK, I added a nullobject to a ship, I added a row of 4 lights neasr each other
ans parented these to the nullobject. Now, when I move the nullobjects in the
Z axis, the lights are 'fired' from the ship in the direction the ship is
aiming. Everything is fine by now...

The tricky part is to make those lens flares look like a laser beam... I did
turn motion blur on and I did a lot of experiments with the flare's intensity
and dissolve. Actually, I spend MORE time experimenting with the #$%@@ flares
than to set up the rest of the scene (with asteroids, nebulas, stars, 3
ships...)

I can't get the damn thing right! As someone tried this technique and achieved
good results?! Can anyone give me the values you used for the flares
envelopes?!

I think I will be back to my tube/transparent-tube thingy to simulate my
lasers :(

Thank you in advance.

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