I am trying to make an effect similar to the effect in Tron: Legacy in the light cycle scene. I am aiming for the effect found from 0:04 through 0:12 in the video I linked. I feel like using a wireframe would be good but I don't know where to go from there.
Edit: Cegaton already answered a very similar question here.
You'll find a lot of tutorials on Youtube about light streak effects, there are a lot of ways, it really depends on how it is supposed to look like and how sophisticated you want it to be... I guess in the Tron movie they use several combined effects so even if I knew it would be hard to sum it up in few words. One of the most basic way to make a light streak could be this one:
- Create a curve, create a second one that will be its Taper Object (its profile from its start to its end).
- In the Properties panel > Data, play with the parameters to give your curve its thickness and its profile. The taper allows you to make the streak slightly disappear at its end.
- Play with the End value (and also maybe its Start value) and give it some keyframes to animate.
- Now in the Node Editor > Compositing mode, give a blur effect or else to give the glow effect.