Howdy I want to ask how the skill and spells effects are made for rpg's like in this pic http://www.lineage2.com/images/knowledge/race_skill_elf_02b.jpg or this http://www.lineage2.com/images/knowledge/race_skill_human_01b.jpg There are a lot of useless tutorials to make effects, because they are made not for games, and I need only for games. So I'm wondering how do they make the effects without using particles. Btw how do you make glow effects, like this: http://www.carlsguides.com/pictures/worldofwarcraft/worldofwarcraftscreen010.jpg 3d softwares are 3ds max or maya sry for my english, Im too lazy atm to think correctly :P [Edited by - EFKISS on May 5, 2008 1:39:56 PM]

Effects like those shown are usually constructed in engine, not with a 3D package like Maya or 3DS Max.

For the glow effects, look into HDR.

Basically, take everything over a certain value, like 250,250,250 into a new buffer.
Shrink it by half and Gaussian blur it, then do it again into another buffer, and again and again.
Add them all together and render over the top of the screen buffer.

That's a vast over simplification but should point you in the right direction.

There is a D3D sample that does this, and another that shows the results at each step.

Thanks, I thought it was some kind of animated mesh with textures, alphas and particles

well if u are using 3d max u can try using video post on the model to render it... but then it will not have a effects cause on the surrrounding objects (i.e. no shadow cast when some other things cover it's light path etc) Video post also does not works with normal render... Must render in video post to sho that effects. Save a lot when using video post and be sure to have a entainment with u when render...