Smoke Tutorial

For the Pearl Harbor attack I will need to know how to create smoke. I will use this in scenes that show the destruction of the Japanese bombing.

I used a Super Spray (under particle systems) to create an emitting object. I selected load preset>hose. This gives the smoke its rising effect.

I could then used the parameters box in modifiers and played around with the spread option that could widen the smoke. This would be useful for larger smoke. I then changed the preview to Mesh. This gives a more realistic shape.

Under Particle Type I changed the standard particles to 'Facing'. This means that whatever view you are looking at the smoke it is always the same.

Then I could play with the Particle Generation tab. I could change the speed, to increase the size and speed that smoke rises. The variation allows the smoke to curl different ways.

By changing the 'Emit Start' to -100 it allows the smoke to be full capacity at the beginning of the scene. Changing the 'emit stop' and 'display until' changes how long the smoke of visible for in the scene.

I could then change the size. This makes the smoke funnel wider. This would be useful if larger objects are on fire.

Under Rotation and Collision I could change the spin time and variation to change the way the smoke particles looked.

I could then add materials to the smoke. I clicked the diffuse button and selected Particle Age. Here I could change the colours in the smoke. I chose dark, medium and light greys for the colours. this gives a smooth render of colours.

I then selected the box next to the opacity tab. I selected Mask. In mask I made the map box a Noise map. This gives the smoke a more realistic look. For the Mask box I chose a Gradient. This gives the colours a smoother mix and makes it more realistic.

I could then render and get an idea of what it will look like.

Smoke will be extremely useful for this project and it gives life to the animation.