how do i get this kind of ribbon effect

[Chris Smith]

Yes, I’m sure with some deformers and forge freeform it is possible. But Clearly this piece was done the way most Effects pipelines are done. Start in 3D and do the composite in 2D.

There are many ways to do ribbons, but the best, most natural looking and most controllable ones are generated in 3D. In this case create a ribbon in the normal sense than apply a procederal shader that creates lines in the diffuse channel and the transparency channel. Then add glow in 2D (or in your 3D app albeit with far less control)

Ribbons are made different ways. You can create a path curve, do a simple extrude, then animate the extrude. Or use a loft nurbs along many path curves using Bi-rail curves to set the angle. So many delicious ways in 3D to make ribbons.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Account closed At user request]

It looks like Trapcode 3D stroke to me with a repeater maybe with starglow or shine? Anyways here check it out.
https://www.trapcode.com/

[Kevin Herrin]

Wouldn’t vegas do the trick? I was looking at Den Velez’s tutorial on animated stroke. I was playing with that and came up with something very similar. If I remeber right i changed the echo up to about 90. Here’s the tut:
https://www.creativecow.net/show.php?page=/articles/velez_dean/glowing_stroke/index.html

[Chris S]

Thanks all. I think 3d may be the way I go.

[Matt]

Check out this article:
https://www.theebelinggroup.com/site/press/lobo-nakd_3fm_digit_06.2004.jpg

It shows a screenshot of the ribbons being done in Maya, although a similar effect could probably be done with 3d stroke.

[Chris Smith]

Cool. That confirmed my assumption. The thing w/3D stroke is that it is not 3D. It is still 2D in a 3D world with the illusion of thickness. Yes, you could create a LOT of solids bunched together with 3D stroke to try and get this effect, But why? In 3D you have true 3D surfaces that can bend and twist so easily that you can map lines onto (like the Maya image). Plus since the buildings in the BG are clearly 3D (the cube/window flipping) they have already done all the work of matching the camera so it makes sense to create all the elements in 3D.

My Guess is the particles are in 3D as well, but they don’t seem to really track w/ the camera so I’m thinking that can be a simple 2D solution like Particular. Of course they could’ve just imported the Maya camera to get a track, but then that brings up the question again why not just use Maya’s 3D particles in the first place.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Chris S]

“…use a loft nurbs along many path curves using Bi-rail curves to set the angle”

Chris, can you explain what Bi-Rail means? I am using 3dsmax. Also, how do i get the geometry to “grow” along spline? I created the loft…i used the twist function inside the loft tool to get the lines to rotate around its axis…does not seem to give smooth twist, however.

[Chris Smith]

Sure.

I only know Maya and C4D though. A bi-rail is the lines perpindicular to the loft lines. For example in C4D is create your loft curves to stretch the material from one line to another to create the ribbon. You also have the option to throw in other perpindicular lines to shape how it bends and twists to get there.

In Maya a birail is a separate function all together. You may want to try a sweep nurbs instead and use a bi-rail. As far as animating it, there are usually parameters to animate how complete the process is. Like in Maya you can animate the extrude amount so it looks like the ribbon is growing along the path.

Or if your ribbon is a constant length. You can create just a long skinny plane and animate and deform it along a curve.

However is MAX is like C4D, maybe play with the real time deformers forst before needing to create bi-rails. A clever use of bend or twist deformers can create so pretty cool stuff instead of needing the exactness of a bi-rail.

Here is a tutorial by Chad Briggs from the Maya Cow showing how to do Bi-rail ribbons in Maya for most control:

https://www.creativecow.net/show.php?forumid=2&page=/articles/briggs_chad/maya_ribbon/index.html

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Chris S]

OK 3dsmax has a function that let’s me insert shapes at different intervals along the path and i can rotate those to twist the path.

But what is stumping me now is making the path “grow”. Funny thing is I have been using 3dsmax since v2.5 and never tried this.

[Chris S]

AH HA!!! I got it….all I had to do was set the scale deformer within the loft function to 0 and animate it along the path.

Thanks all for the help.