how to create simple aura?

# 1 03-06-2015 , 05:39 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2015

Posts: 3

Hi guys. I'm new to graphics softwares. I've got into many tutorials and I got to say maya is an awesome tool.

I want to achieve something extremely simple but haven't found a way to achieve it.

basically I want to give a sphere a flat vector like aura(glow?). I attached an image of what I ultimately want to achieve. I'm not sure if its possible in maya but if it is, a little guidance or outline on what I should be doing would be extremely appreciated. user added image

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# 2 03-06-2015 , 07:46 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

Does this need to be transparent or just a colored sphere?
If the first option, you could duplicate a number of spheres with lamberts, each larger one with slightly more transparency and give them all an incandescence of blue. If it's the latter, look into creating a fresnel look with the samplerInfo node. Except instead of a smooth black to white ramp, just do a series of blue colors with no interpolation on the ramp and plug that into the color of a surface shader.

We can help with the details once you've done a little reading on materials and gotten started with a little test in Maya.

-stwert

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# 3 04-06-2015 , 04:56 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2015

Posts: 3

Hey.
I made one instance of sphere and added a ramp the color.
I attached an image of what I made last night, its not an exact replica of what I wanted but I'm hoping to tweak it to get it right.
Yeah, I was going to add another smaller sphere in the center and I wanted it all to be transparent so that the smaller sphere could be visible but I was hoping it would be possible to change the transparency for each shade of blue.

I'm experimenting with it at the moment. user added image

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# 4 04-06-2015 , 05:23 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

So I was thinking for the transparency, that you would just create multiple spheres and give each of them a different color and transparency. Not sure how that would look. The alternative is to use a single sphere with the ramp (looks like that's what you're doing) but also create another grayscale ramp with the same increments mapped into the transparency channel.