Here is a picture of the Crab Nebula as seen through the Hubble. I need to recreate this as a truly three-dimensional object for an upcoming hologram we are creating. I've tried mapping various pictures of it onto spheres in Vue but am disappointed with the results. Does anyone here have any suggestions on how I could go about creating this in Bryce or Vue ... or even want to take a crack at it? (I'll send you free holograms) I've posted this in the Vue forum as well, since I have Vue too, and I like the way view handles starfields better. THANKS! -Tim

If you transorm the image into several grayscale layers and seperate each layer, you then can recreate them into the terrain editor, then apply several volume textures. If I had time I would give it a try, but am way to busy with work. Good luck!! :)

I'd go with volumetric spheres or even metaballs. Hmmmm....now you have me curious. :)

Aldaron: I tried volumetric spheres, stretched out in various ways and got so-so results. I'll try to post what I have done so far. If you (or anyone) can do it, there's a box of REAL 3D holograms and Motion-Pix with your name on it. :)

pedrith: What you suggested sounds interesting (and I have split the R G B into seperate images to use as texture maps), but as for the rest I'm at a loss. I mean I sort of understand what your saying and might take a stab at it in Bryce, but my Brycing is a little rusty now.

Thanks, both.
-Tim

Here I tried just recreating the blue channel (which is basically the "center mist") using a sphere and some volumetric clouds and a transparency map. This was done in Vue.

... and here is my latest attempt at combining this with a texture map from the red channel of the image. I know the original has some green or greenish yellow as well, but we're doing this as a 2-color hologram.

The red color needs tweaked on the last picture, of course. But even then, it just isn't quite right. The red section is a dead-giveaway that it's a mapped volumetric sphere. I've tried using various trans maps and orientation/sizing of the sphere, but this is the best so far. It's hard to get that more random/rough look like in the original, rather than a rounded look. Any ideas? Thanks, Tim

Hm, I've almost got it, but the blue foggy stuff doesnt look right no matter which way I fiddle with it. I'll see what I can do anyhow.

Try placing a light behind the volume to get that glow...?

I almost forgot ... here's a kicker: The blue foggy and the red "tendrils" ultimately need to be rendered seperately, completely seperated from each other. So obviously they need to be two seperate components. -Tim

Sparr: WOW, that's encouraging! Can't wait to see what you've got there. -Tim

See, this is what I've got. But I cant get the blue stuff, and I've tried.

This is what I've been able to get so far. 2 Spheres and 3 tori. All Bryce preset materials. If you only need it from one angle instead of being able to render it from any angle then the artifacts can be fixed due to the volume materials overlapping.

I think if we combine mine (minus the tori) with sparr's we have it.

Actually, I have to animate a camera pan around it over the course of 180 frames. Probably 120 degrees. -Tim

Mine can animate around as many times as needed, and should look fine, as soon as I get a blue foggy type thing that looks decent. I figure I have the red stuff down pat.

For the blue, I just used some type of volumetric cloud mapped to sphere. Then of course combined it with a blue hue. The red looks pretty good for coming from scratch, thanks.

It depend what you are trying to do like what do you mean 3d? You want it to look like you're in the world? Difficult but if you want it to appear effect like that you're beside it then no problem if you can find a huge image of it. I mean really huge like that 260 meg file link I posted on the other forum. Thw way you'd do it is plot that flat image to a sphere shape then export it as a round image or even a 6 sided box. With the right software it will look like you are standing dead center. I have all the cool software here but I can't do it, I have no time. You should have asked me a month ago. It will not be hologram but it will look like you are on a ship flying by it like it will surround the sky in all directions. Next best thing to being there. The only thing you would have to do is post process the stars to make them look really cool. I've already done this with the ring nebula BTW. If you insist on rendering it then like I said additive materials is your only hope.

I can give it a try, but there's one really big problem. I keep getting interference between the volumes. I get edges where different spheres intersect. How do I get rid of them without using Postwork?

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You also might try using brightness as a visual clue as to closeness and thus seperate as layers of brightness, using many layers - the brightest areas closest to the camera. this wouldn't be perfect, as some areas might be more intense without actually being closer.