I’m looking for a way to at least halfway recreate something like this:
I assume, the smoke is trailing along a path and probably is distorted (raggedy) via noise or so, but my assumptions fail 99% in Blender. It seems like in this GIF there are several emitters/objects flying on different curves in the same direction, twirling around.
I’ve only found stuff on puffy smoke cloud particles along a path, or a cloud displacement modifier on a smoke object, which would already be cool to do, but that raggedy texture is what captures me. Maybe you guys have some pointers for me?
Hey @Okidoki - I like the watery one best, I guess the speed is just a matter of tweaking (it should be fast , alive and aggressive, like a comet on crack The dancers are very smooth, I had seen those too. But I need something dirty, twisted
Most of the time I have trouble searching for the right terms - I don’t want you guys to waste your time “letmegooglethatforyou” style, but I’m very grateful if you can supplement my shortcomings mentioned above
Thanks a bunch, maybe there’s more input in the future, but for now, I’ll test drive the Demonic Ink ov Hell
No stress… in your question someone could read that you really struggle a little with this and sometimes one simply knows what to look for or remembers: “i had seen this”. ( In fact these was just two quick search results which i thought could be worth to look at… i do not maintain a libray of good tip/tutorial maybe i should start todo so ??)
There are also some users who seems to demand answers… and with a “full text” as how to to… ( ← yeah no “this” or a full noun at all) …and this is the their first post (after registerign 2 minutrs before…
But i did noticed your Dino Eye for some time already .
I’m very bad at names…someone might call the-man-how-don’t-know-his-brothers-name… but i do; it’s “little brother”
I’ve had people help me in so many ways here, honestly, without BA I’d be lost. Some have basically made entire setups for me, for fun, or because they can. I have never experienced that spirit anywhere else. I think some users are annoyed they don’t understand anything and demand an answer. Well. I often write jumbled up fantasy nonsense. So I’m very thankful people tolerate me and take theri time
That Dino is probably from 2005, maybe now I should reopen and finish it
So far, so good, I’m through with the watery wisps and I can already see this will be a nightmare to tweak, I’m not even sure if playback is faster with baking, and I can’t really tell if I can bind the smoke to a moving object and a curve - next step!
I also think that BA is very friendly…
– not like “those Q&A sites where everyone is picky about any word”
Even if there are some exhausting users… mostly those with less then ten post in the last two years or new here for ten minutes (and new with blender or 3D since yesterday) and ready to fight…
OK, so I think I have found a usable tutorial for smoke, but “all” of them just blow smoke in some direction, like an engine, or it’s a fireball - but I need a long smoke trail that follows that path I animated the emitter to follow along.
How can I get the smoke to move along - and stick to - said path? Do I need to use a pipe as domain (e.g. duplicate path, add thickness, convert to mesh)? Or move magnetic force fields along with it? Or charge force fields?
So many options for the smoke alone, I’m just trying to get out of an extra day of the heat my system is blowing off on me
This looks more like you want to move a cloud along a path. Have some deformers on it, so it doesn’t look static, or even move a cached sim along a path. But your example is not emitting smoke from a moving object.
My first try would be some deformed object with a noisy volume-shader…
That sounds logical!
It also looks to me like it’s just several long sausages of smoke with some strong noise filters on them, moving along similar paths…
So I should go ahead an create a very long, thin cloud, slap a cloud/smoke shader on it and use displacement noise, right?
yes. In the end it might be a mix of different things, depending on the shot. But basically scaling and/or moving along curve. Ideally you would have a simulated noise cloud cache as the moving object, but a deforming geo with volume shader might work as well. Have some additional curves for faked branching. And for the icing on the cake when everything looks good, add a bit of real smoke sim, so that you have some leftovers whizzing around. They didn’t seem to do that in your reference, but I’m sure it would add something.
Ok, great. So what I learned so far wasn’t for nothing after all!
Now I just have to research the simulated noise cloud cache, I just tried slapping a cloud shader on a plain cylinder and it looks, well, like a cylinder.
I’m also too stupid to remember how to do the path animation correctly, it’s just a cloudy stick moving along a path, but that’s another chapter. I did that before, so I’ll do it again.
Thank you very much, too! I’m sure I’ll be back with questions, but this is definitely the next step.
All right - so here I am with a VDB cloud, mesh to volume modifier and I can move the mesh along the curve, as it drags the cloud along.
The clouds also need to pass through a lattice at their origin & destination, so that should work as well. Now I just need to create a shader and animate the color values a bit over time and then create several paths and several emitters in varying sizes, mixed with the smoke, as you said.
I just wonder if there’s a way to prevent these mini clouds spawning in front of the main cloud, I mean, that’s how clouds do work, but that’s part of the noise. I also want to find a way to make these clouds more dynamic, but the problem with the VDB is there aren’t many modifiers available. I would like to simulate wind speed or something, so their own propulsion tatters the or so. Otherwise, I see light at the end of the tunnel
)
The dancers are very smooth, I had seen those too. But I need something dirty, twisted 
in your question someone could read that you really struggle a little with this and sometimes one simply knows what to look for or remembers: “i had seen this”.
maybe i should start todo so ??)
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