Smoke simulation lighting and shadows

Support Lighting and Rendering
1

Hi all,
I’m trying to do a smoke simulation as like in this youtube clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itBmZNTL-1A (can be found at the 1:39 mark). I have attached a screenshot also:

y0VSS.png929×634 290 KB

My attempt is shown below:


The viewport seems to show better what I’m trying to achieve as it has more defined shadows and also has what looks like rays of light going through the smoke (easier to see in the animation). For the current lighting I’m using a HDR and that green sphere in the picture below with an emission shader.

Any idea what settings I need to change or things I need to add to create more defined shadows preferably with some light rays travelling through the smoke? I tried changing the size of the sphere but doesn’t seem to make much difference

Thanks in advance

2

For more defined or sharper shadows, you may want to significantly decrease the size of the sphere and possibly raise it up slightly so that the shadows may be cast from the top of the smoke as seen in the video.

3

Higher density on smoke will create crisper shadows. Try 10000 to see what I mean!