OK, so a bit of a tutorial on what I did:
1. Motion: the motions were recorded using 1 or 2 Kinects and iPisoft mocap software. The first half (up to where the remote comes out) was done with 1 Kinect on iPisoft 1.0. The rest was done on 2 Kinects on version 2.0 and works much better. I exported BVH files from iPisoft and imported them into DAZ Studio, applied them to M4, then exported them as an animated pose. Then I imported that to my character (also M4) in Carrara and then cleaned up the motion by deleting unwanted keyframes and/or reposing here and there.
2. Lightsaber: pretty simple really. The hilt is a freebie from Vanishingpoint. I removed the blade on the model and replaced it with a blade I modeled myself (basically a cylinder with a rounded end) and added a mottled blue shader (fractal mixer) and put the same color in the glow channel. Add a little bit of an aura (8 pixels or so) and you’re good to go.
3. Blaster bolts: basically the same thing as the lightsaber blade, just shorter and different color. Used motion paths for the shots, usually on screen for about 0.2 - 0.3 seconds (6-8 frames).
4. Remote explosion: this took a while. There are three particle emitters: one with lots of small sparks, one with a few bigger chunks (a piece I modeled) and one for smoke. The sparks are just small diamond particles with an orange color and glow. The larger chunks have a slightly brighter yellow color/glow mixed with some black (fractal mixer). The smoke is the basic smoke particle generator that used to come with Carrara that 3DAGE had updated to work with C8, with a few little tweaks including a slight grey glow to make the smoke more visible.
5. Thrown lightsaber: motion path combined with a spin modifier.
6. Candles/ball bearings: ball bearings are just spheres with a chrome shader. When the saber hits them, I switch to a double of the shere with an orange/yellow glow shader combined with an explode and dissolve modifier. Add in some particle sparks for fun. The candle flames are regular Carrara fire with an Anything Glows added on each one.
If you have any other questions feel free to ask.
