Fade Effect?

M

Maxo12110

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Fade Effect?

Hi,

Is there any known way to fade an object around a certain point? For example, I'm trying to make the warping effect around a black hole. It looks pretty good so far but I need a way to have the warping effect fade out (see how it stretches the background around the edges of the picture? I need to remove this.)
And just deleting the part I don't want doesn't work, the effect cuts out too abruptly.
An alternate approach to this would be a way to map the index of refraction.

Any help would be appreciated.
 

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  • BlackHole1.gif
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I'm not clear on what you're trying to fade, but it seems to me that a quick visit to Uncle Photoshop / Acorn / GIMP / Pixelmator would solve the problem in a jiffy (feathered selection -- "boom"). If it's the distortion you want to finess, well that could be achieved in the aforesaid compositing tools too.

(If you wanted to animate the effect, you might pay a visit to Aunty Final Cut Pro or Cousin Motion.)
 

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  • instant black hole.jpg
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  • black hole in particle city v2.jpg
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Thanks for the advice, but actually I'm trying to make a video of one, like as seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzYOFrmkclA&feature=related

Edit: Oh, OK. Only thing is, I have none of those aforementioned programs besides Gimp, and I'm trying to make a video with it.

Basically, I want to have it fade around the circumference of the plane I used for the effect and lower the IoR the further it gets from the black hole.

Is there perhaps any way to map Index of Refraction?

Attached is a better view of what I want to fade.

P.S. why does it say I'm a site admin?
 

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  • BlackHole2.zip
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Last edited:
Hi.
I had a quick go.
Made a plane with decent iterations and mapped a photo on it.
Place a small spherify modifier over it to distort the mapping.
Upon that I placed a silverplated egg.
Drew a spline and animate ball and modifier at the same speed over the image plane.

Cheers
Frank

Photography: courtesy of Astrofam Tivoli
 

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  • Blackhole1small.mov.zip
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  • BlackHole1.jpg
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frank beckmann said:
Hi.
I had a quick go.
Made a plane with decent iterations and mapped a photo on it.
Place a small spherify modifier over it to distort the mapping.
Upon that I placed a silverplated egg.
Drew a spline and animate ball and modifier at the same speed over the image plane.

Cheers
Frank

Photography: courtesy of Astrofam Tivoli
Click to expand...
Hey, thanks, that worked pretty well!

The only problem is that I need to do this with 360° HDRI, so a spherify modifier wouldn't work, but I'll definitely consider this tactic next time I have a still background.

But until then, do you know how I might be able to do this? I'll keep trying other tactics but it would be nice to know how to fade objects in specific areas.
 
frank beckmann said:
Why not? Map the image to a ball and place your camera inside. Take a circle spline to let the spherify modifier run along.

Cheers
Frank
Click to expand...
Good idea. I'l try that as well.

The only problem is (sorry there are so many problems) is that I need to be able to view this from any angle. If I were to view this from a different angle I'd see the event horizon (black part) in one place and the gravitational lensing (warping) in another place.

Right now I have, basically, a plane representing spacetime that I bent in the way a black hole bends spacetime, and I gave it a material that has Index of Refraction (2.2). However, because it has Index of Refraction, the flat part of the plane distorts the background as well, which is not what I really want.

Attached is an image of what I mean by a "model of spacetime".
 

Attachments

  • Snapshot 2010-06-12 16-44-01.zip
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So the outside edges of the warp need to fade out into space?

If so, I would use a flat square plane on its own, with an emissive shader texture map that fades at the edges into a transparency with the center invisible too, then rotate it's animation, but separately, attach maybe a funnel below connecting up to the plane leading into the black "hole", (a former giant star shrunk to less than the size of a pea upon implosion, with overwhelming gravitational pull as you know.)

If your camera reaches the side of the plane, it would look flat, unless you add a center object as the plane's pivot to rotate around, with a target tag to the camera.

I may be way off here, but it's another idea.
 
DarthSidious05 said:
So the outside edges of the warp need to fade out into space?

If so, I would use a flat square plane on its own, with an emissive shader texture map that fades at the edges into a transparency with the center invisible too, then rotate it's animation, but separately, attach maybe a funnel below connecting up to the plane leading into the black "hole", (a former giant star shrunk to less than the size of a pea upon implosion, with overwhelming gravitational pull as you know.)

If your camera reaches the side of the plane, it would look flat, unless you add a center object as the plane's pivot to rotate around, with a target tag to the camera.

I may be way off here, but it's another idea.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding this (I'm still a noob somewhat.)

Basically, I need a way to map the Index of Refraction, if there is such a way. I think that if there was a script for this it would fully solve my problem.

For now, I have linked to one video of my warping effect close up (Just to show you how it looks) and a video of it far away (to show you why I need to fade it.)

Link1

Link2
 
hi maxo,

for fading textures on spheres you need the i-n plug of the state node, which always goes from black to white (center).
for increasing the effect the power function is adequate.
the refraction needs to start at one at the edge and then increase to maybe more than two, so you need the multiplyadd node to convert a 0>1 range into a 1>3 or so.
the black center means here transparency goes to zero from one, so you need to invert the range by subtracting from one.
please check the attached file,

- archie

View attachment blackhole.jas.zip

Screen shot 2010-06-13 at 6.50.05 PM.png

Untitled.jpg

update: redshift version: View attachment blackholered.c3dmat.zip
 
Last edited:
archie said:
hi maxo,

for fading textures on spheres you need the i-n plug of the state node, which always goes from black to white (center).
for increasing the effect the power function is adequate.
the refraction needs to start at one at the edge and then increase to maybe more than two, so you need the multiplyadd node to convert a 0>1 range into a 1>3 or so.
the black center means here transparency goes to zero from one, so you need to invert the range by subtracting from one.
please check the attached file,

- archie

View attachment 11025

View attachment 11027

View attachment 11026
Click to expand...
Thanks! This works really well.


I'm rendering an animation with it now. I'll give you credit for this when I put it on Youtube.
 
Last edited:
Maxo12110 said:
Thanks! This works really well.

ONly thing is, how would I make it have a solid sphere in the middle instead of a faded-in sphere?
Click to expand...

like in your first image ?
that's not looking that realistic imho, but well, you can always put a small black ball inside the big refraction sphere...

- archie
 
archie said:
like in your first image ?
that's not looking that realistic imho, but well, you can always put a small black ball inside the big refraction sphere...

- archie
Click to expand...
True.

Nevermind, I think it actually looks good the way it is.

(The reason I wanted to make it solid is, by a supercomputer simulation I saw, the Event Horizon looked like it didn't fade in, it looked solid.)

Here's the video of the supercomputer simulation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzYOFrmkclA&feature=related
 
Maxo12110 said:
The reason I wanted to make it solid is, by a supercomputer simulation I saw, the Event Horizon looked like it didn't fade in, it looked solid.
Click to expand...

i see.
well, a journey into the event horizon will not work in cheetah cause we are faking the effect here with a sphere surface material, once the cam crosses the surface the effect will be destroyed.
in reality/supercomp sim it is a spacetime effect, no idea how to fake that in 3d :redface:

- archie
 
archie said:
i see.
well, a journey into the event horizon will not work in cheetah cause we are faking the effect here with a sphere surface material, once the cam crosses the surface the effect will be destroyed.
in reality/supercomp sim it is a spacetime effect, no idea how to fake that in 3d :redface:

- archie
Click to expand...
I don't need that effect in 3D, I was just pointing out that the event horizon seems mostly solid looking (of course it's not a physical object, but it looks solid.)

But nevermind. It looks great!
 
Archie, your explanations are great! You need to make a manual/tutorial on nodes. It would be great. :icon_thumbup:
 
Andreu said:
Archie, your explanations are great! You need to make a manual/tutorial on nodes. It would be great. :icon_thumbup:
Click to expand...
Yeah, I would much appreciate this. I always wanted to know how to use the Nodes system but it seems so complicated to me. I would love it if you made some tutorials, especially since you're so good (The black hole material works perfectly!) :D

-Max
 
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