Simulated Visible Light!!! Finally.

Hi Guys,
I decided to create a couple more samples of the engine glow/flame(can’t decide which to call it). Anyway, here they are in Blue, Red, andamp; Yellow.

The settings on the texture is as follows;
Ambient = 100
Diffuse = 50
Specular = 0
Translucent = 50

The base color(bottom face) on all of these is White with settings of;(this seems to help the overall appearance)
Ambient = 100
Diffuse = 100
Specular = 100
Translucent = 50

(Double-click on the cone and set the Lat = 2 andamp; Long = 50. This seems to cut down on the darker artifacts at the base of the cone. Also, Optimise Object Geometry and Solidify Object BEFORE applying texture.)

Now, I tried this in Blue with a half-sphere also and got a couple of darker areas that I didn’t like much, although it’s possible that you might be able to get the darker areas out. I haven’t tried yet.

At any rate, the cones look pretty good with this texture and the settings listed above, and I believe you might be able to get this to work on a Lathe Object(teardrop shape), or maybe even some of the other basic primitives.

If anyone would like this 3DC sample file with all three cones, let me know and I’ll either send them to you in email, or send them to Richard so that he can set them up for downloading. The same goes for the textures(800X600 32bit Alpha), in .BMP format.

Les

I have finally found a way to produce simulated visible light in 3DC that will work for an engine glow/flame….

First you will need some type of paint program in which you can create a gradient texture(I’m using Project Dogwaffle). Create the gradient texture with the darker color on top(I used blue, with 800X600 32bit color), and white on bottom. Save this as a .bmp.

Next choose an object in 3DC to apply the texture to(I used a cone). Apply the texture with some where between 20 and 40 as a translucency value(I used 35), and voila!!! You now have an engine glow/flame that is semi-transparent.

TIP:
When placing the glow/flame at the engine exhaust port on your ship, it will help to color the exhaust port face(s) a very bright white color(Diffuse 100, Ambient 100, andamp; Specular 100. This will add to the effect of the engine glow/flame.

Les