Aye, I didn't see Aldaron's post until AFTER I finished this monstrosity... But it was fun, and I learned a few things! Hope someone finds it useful. JimBob, I'll do your explosions Tutorial tomorrow, sit tight and play with some lasers for a day or so!

(more...)

(yep...)

(nods...)

(head becoming heavy...)

(eyeballs sweating...)

(has had enough of PS for one night...!)

:-D I'm bookmarking this in case I ever decide to try animation! Thanks!

LSD is cool. erm, You know what I mean.

Interesting, different approach to what I used in my mech animation.

A totally diff. method than what I have used before, but very cool!

Ooooh, this could be handy, I just hope I remember where it is after I've moved. Fran

Much of this is merely conceptual. The best way to learn about animation is to simply TRY it! The linking and tracking system in Bryce is quite inferior, as you cannot animate those functions. You cannot key-frame an object tracking from one object to another. So we have to make work-arounds! Thus, the Hidden Sphere, as opposed to merely having the laser track the Asteroid itself... With the sphere one could have the laser gun shoot one asteroid, then swivel and shoot another one, and another, and one like that... Fran, in the Forums, you can always "Search". Enter a keyword, like "Laser", or "lordstormdragon", and you will be able to find this page for months, if not years! Sometimes, for fun, I do a search for, "shadowdragonlord"...

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, ok enought of that, (see the reply to the I have a question thread!!!!! Oh yeah, Thank you!!

kewl effect. I'm curious about render times on this technique? I use a different technique entirely which is not render intensive at all (about 15 seconds per frame for the lazer alone at dvd size image (720 x 480)). Ive been working on this exact effect recently in response to a question I got in an email...specifically animating a lazer and the resulting explosion. This is just the lazer and its effect, I plan to make the wall smoke and then get the explosion with particles and fire later anyhow, Im using metaballs at the center which have a white material with white ambiance and then white spheres over this which have the same material with the difference being that they are set to "fuzzy" in the material lab and are bigger (to give the outer glow). :) BT

Very cool effect brycetech!

Very nice, Brycetech! The reason I over-explained animation in those frames was to make sure a newbie could understand it, sometimes I just assume too much and often skip the basics. This time I wanted to make sure JimBob didn't get more discouraged with 3D and just give up on Bryce, I hope I didn't make things seem TOO complex though. Also, I believe he wanted to animate a space battle, and wanted a more standard laser-burst from a spaceship to a specific target. Thus, all the Track Object blather...

lordstormdragon, "Sometimes, for fun, I do a search for, "shadowdragonlord"... Why, what happens? All I found was an oblique reference to this person in an image by 'micah_dixon'. Should there be more? Fran

Let's just say "re-incarnation..."!

He became a bit less "shadowy"? gggg Fran

Aye, more storms, less shadows... One way or another, dragons still totally rule. (heh!)

Attached Link: Download

Old(er) scene file that I had put up here for download some time ago.

Feel free to tear apart. ;o)

AgentSmith