Laser Beam

Hey All,



First…I want to say how great you guys have been with questions from new people such as myself. I think you've literally saved me time, frustration and hair :slight_smile:



So, onto my next fun challenge. How do you create a laser beam with glow a la Babylon 5 or something. I searched the forums and, unfortunately most of the posts seem to be quite old…so I was wondering if anyone has tackled this recently…



What I have right now is little, finite cylinders firing from my ship…but I'd like to have a continuous beam. Are cylinders the right way to contruct a continuous beam? Or is a particl effect (…like a line particle…) a better approach?



Thanks,

D

i implemented exactly such a laser beam and its a combinatino of both in my case. i took a texture that looks like a laser beam (fading out to the sides) and put it onto a quad (width= 1, height=17000 (or so)) that faces up with its long side (its shooting straight up). i rotate it around the Y-axid to always face the camera, like that it has the right perspective and looks like a good laser beam (since i made the texture myself  ;)). Then, to add some effect, i put a swarm particle effect to the origin of the laser beam and another particle effect to shoot up 'with the laser beam' to suggest that there is actually light 'shooting' up.



so long,

Andy

I am about to implement something like this myself, but have not yet decided how… Was planning to just try out using a line and rendering it in a bloom pass… I just do not know if it will get fuzzied then…



Anyways I will probably end up using a quad and a texture like teh previous poster… Just that I will want to animate the texture… at least a couple of frames :slight_smile:

The Furballz game also has some nice laser effects:

http://jmonkeyengine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=70&limit=1&limitstart=5

u can simply use a quad with a color texture then apply blooming on the quad.

Thanks guys…I'll give all your suggestions a try and see what happens.

Every time I see this topic I think of mutated sea bass.

I bet those are good with white wine…

I think of Austin Powers: "Where are my freekin' sharks with laser beams?!?"