Help - EVE online star effect

Community Forums/General Help/Help - EVE online star effect

MCP(Posted 2010) [#1]
Hi all,
Anyone who's played EVE ever warped up close to a star?
I was wondering how that star effect was achieved and if a similar effect
could be recreated in Blitz3D?


puki(Posted 2010) [#2]
Is this it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CieBTbzm9E

I've never played Eve.

It also looks like a sheet-effect a bit like a waterfall - so, my way forward would be to basically scroll a stretched texture(s) on a rippling mesh(s).


Kryzon(Posted 2010) [#3]
I'd scroll a noise cloud, alpha-blended texture down on a cylinder mesh that encapsulates the camera.
The cylinder needs to have it's front vertices (the ones at the front of the camera) with zero alpha so as to provide a nice fade-out effect (so you can't see the edges of the cylinder).

Shake the camera along with the fast texture scrolling, and voilą.
Easier said than done, btw.

EDIT: Similar effect to this one, at 00:15: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTiuhxo--S8.
But of course, this one is much more aggressive. Note that there's a stripy-glowy texture there giving you the shape of the cylinder - you might want to avoid that and just use a noisy cloud texture, that doesn't reveal the shape of the mesh (sometimes a noise cloud texture shows up there, pay close attention).

I also think some pixel-shader refraction might be going on in that EVE effect. This would give it a much better presence. You can do this in B3D by using Environment Mapped Bump Mapping, available through the FastExtension libraries.


MCP(Posted 2010) [#4]
Thanks for posting people but I'm trying to recreate the star itself close up. Not the actual warp effect. Sorry if this wasn't made clear!

I have found a video of the effect I'm after...

Eve Star effect


Kryzon(Posted 2010) [#5]
#1 thing noticed: Bloom. You can see the ship is sometimes swallowed whole because of the bloom (or HDR, if you will).

By far the hardest thing is really generating the animated "shape" of that mass.
There are various ways you can do that. A simple one that works would be to have 3 or 4 clones of a static sprite (no need to be animated), them all aligned at the same place and orientation.
Then you'd set them for ADD blend, and rotate then at arbitrary speeds (all in the same axis, of course). They would add up and it would look like a single, animated distorted mass (especially at the edges, since in the middle the saturation would be so great as to get to white).
You need to be careful when painting the texture (which should be the same for them all; it's the rotation and consequent blending of them all that makes it look like a single animated mass). The texture needs to be 'ideal' to achieve this effect - you're gonna need to make lots of different versions until you come up with the definitive one.

I don't know how those ghosty, aurora borealis-like trails at the edges were done. Looks like a vertex effect, the way it shades (the inner edge having vertices with full opacity, the outer edge having vertices fully transparent).
This looks like a specially modelled mesh, that has it's vertices waved around through code (not only in their positions but also at their opacity attributes). Using this, along with the sprites I mentioned above and a carefully calibrated Bloom filter should have a similar result to the original.


MCP(Posted 2010) [#6]
Thanks for your informative input Kryzon. I figured they must have used a layered sprite technique using addative blend. I've been experimenting with this technique since yesterday
and the results look rather promising..

Click to view Animated Star W.I.P.


Kryzon(Posted 2010) [#7]
Interesting indeed, although I'd change a couple of things in the texture:

- Distort the edges at a greater amplitude, so it's not just a small outline (I.E, make it more like the original one).
- Make it more white and saturated, so it ADDs up to a glowing white in the middle of the mass while the darker edges show off that little hint of a yellow\orange color. The Bloom will do the rest.


MCP(Posted 2010) [#8]
Thanks for the advice. I'll continue to experiment.