Just to see what was possible, I tried to make a nuclear explosion. I pretty much used particles and nothing else. You may notice at the beginning it looks like the particles are “spiraling” around the emitter circle… I don’t know why:no: . But tell me what you think.
The animation:
http://files.filefront.com//;6670988;;/
EDIT: Would it help if I uploaded it to youtube? (I don’t have an account, so I used filefront…)
Hi, you should’ve used some kind of video compression for this file. Use the avi_jpeg or compress it with another program afterwards. Avi Raw isn’t good for internet. It’s so huge.
I think the start of the explosion should be somehow “faster” so that you cant see it growing in the start. It could slow down to the speed it is going now afterwards.
Yeah, a nuclear explosion just appears, then it starts rising. How it works is it creates this massive fire-ball explosion, which blows exerything apart with the shockwave, that’s the ground-cloud. Then, the mushroom cloud is when this massive thing starts rising and devouring oxygen, creating an equally massive vacuum which sucks all the debris up into the air, spitting it out in the giant mushroom cloud shape. So the first part–like, it appearing–would be nearly instant.
All said and done though, it’s certainly better than the other particle based nuclear bomb I saw on youtube. 
@ Falgor: Woah! Did I render it in avi raw?? Sorry, accident:(. I ususally do render in avi jpg.
@ Blackboe: Ah, I see now… well the only reason it’s so slow is because I used the ‘map old/map new’ to slow it down. So… is it possible to change the map new/old speed as the animation progresses? I.e, set a keyframe for that?
Actually, I’d have no idea how you’d do that, it might be possible with IPOs, but I’ve never messed around much with particles.
Yeah, as far as I know there’s no “particle speed” type of IPO… I could just make the white flash of light at the beginning longer, and start the animation at frame 5 or 6…
EDIT: By the way I’ll render it again… new render coming soon.
EDIT: Here it is. I tried to make some changes… and the file size is very small now.
[B] http://files.filefront.com//;6685216;;/[/B]
Attached is my test nuke, looks better animated. I cheated though, didn’t use particles (tried that, not very good at it, the little ring around the stem is particles), just used animated textures, bump mapping, and z-transparency/alpha-map effects.
TJ
Attachments
I wonder how he did that! Does anyone know if there’s a new volumetric plugin or feature that makes that possible, or is this guy just REALLY good?
I think he made it with a crapload of nodes.
Haha!:evilgrin: That’s probably true… hmm… well, thanks for the examples guys. I think I might have to refine my technique:spin: .
I think he’s using something like the technique invented by Colin Litster, shown on this page.
http://www.cogfilms.com/index-2006.html
Colin did a presentation on this, I believe, in the blender 2006 conference.
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Blender_Conference.52.0.html
Anyways, I thought yours was actually pretty good for something purely particle-based, it’s hard to make blender particles do what you want, that’s for sure. Nice job.
Why thank you:). I took a look at Colin Lister’s explosion… it doesn’t actually tell you how to do it anywhere on the site, though… does it?
No, it doesn’t, it’s in his blender conference video. 
See second link.
Ohhh… thanks:D !