Solutions for whispy smoke trail?

[FelixU2]

Hi guys,

 

I'm trying to create small explosions of fireworks, seen in Harry Potter (1:23 - 1:25):

 

 

I've created the particle explosion, but now I'm struggling a lot with creating the whispy smoke trail the those particles leave. I see tutorials about those big, high density smoke trails (rocket smoke trails for example), but not about subtle, low-density, whispy smoke trails. What would be a good solution to create this kind of effect? I've added my hipnc file so far, with the explosion, if that may be of any help.

 

Thanks a lot in advance!

Felix

fireworks.hipnc

[Rainroom]

You can advect millions of particles by a smoke sim to get a nice wispy trail. Not sure if it will help in your particular case but there is a new filament solver in H13 to do sort of wispy smoke like stuff using particles. Do take a look.

[loopyllama]

The obvious problem with doing ink and wispy effects with particles is that even with millions of points you still have to blur, blend, and smear in post to get a solid-looking volume.

 

If I were presented with this task I would do 90% of the shots with a spite-based system. I would "sell" the effect by adding fluid sim densities for hero moments (maybe someone's hand interacts with a trail, or a trail is very close to the camera). Finally I would use the sprite system with carefully driven points on a line to direct the smoke that falls in between the bulk sprite shots and the procedural fluid sim shots.

[FelixU2]

Okay, thanks for the help guys!