Any ideas how to achieve this?

[chazfest]

Any ideas how one might go about creating a flare in Houdini? As in, a phosphorus flare, not the solar kind

I've got a project on the go which could use a realistic flare effect, to be emitted from a basket ball as it flies through the air.

Any suggestions, tutorial points or tips would be fantastic and greatly appreciated

Many thanks in advance.

[Fran]

Do you have a reference to get a better idea of what you're talking about. Is it like a smoke trail?

François

Edited December 16, 2010 by Fran

[chazfest]

Do you have a reference to get a better idea of what you're talking about. Is it like a smoke trail?

François

Fair point

All I could find so far are a couple of fairly poor quality vids on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVguBiGlwgs&feature=fvw

Basically, I'm looking to create a bright explosive trail attached to ball (will object track to do so).

Any ideas?

Thanks again.

[Fran]

All the blur, bright light that clamps in the white should be done as a 2d post process in cop. However you can generate a simple layer in 3d to be used in comp.

Just create a small sphere attached to your ball and apply a shader with an animated noise pattern on it. The lighting can be constant. You can also emit some particles rendered as point with a variation in the color intensity overtime to make it more alive. Those particles are needed if you need a trail.

Regarding the smoke you can use sprites.

François

[pclaes]

Regarding the smoke you can use sprites.

I disagree with the sprite approach, with the kind of volumetric lighting coming from the burning end light source you will get a lot more details and richness using volumes, especially in the shadows. Have a look at the fx shelf (download it if you don't have it) heavy smoke. You can modify the particle system inside and also tweak the shader. Inside of the shader you could even do a pointcloud lookup from the sparks (secondary particle system independent of smoke particle system) to illuminate the volume using the sparks. Search for point based illumination. Or use the new "Ce" - but I have not tried that myself.

I would not necessarily use fluids though as you are dealing with long trails of smoke. Depends a bit what your trails need to do. If they are swirly and require fluid motion, you don't really have too much choice besides going with fluids. If they are long and billowy and fairly static, the particle approach should be just fine.