non simulated explosions

[Juraj]

Hello,

I have general question about workflow for explosion effects.

I have noticed in some videos that quite nice result can be achieved with basic geometry and clever shading and compositing.

 

Some examples:

(00:09)

 

I was wondering if you could share your experience and ideas about this technique. It seems very flexible as results are really quick, you don't have to run heavy simulations and you have great control about appearance.

 

I especially like third video but I have no idea what shader was assigned to those spheres. Has those spheres been converted to volume and then displaced with noise?

 

Thanks

[fathom]

i did some pyroclastic smoke a LONG time ago with a similar approach -- a couple levels of noise pushed along normals.  works well when you have something that's very dense.  the last one looked like old-school alpha para/perp smoke.  basically, you do a lowish frequency noise on the normal of a sphere and then have your alpha roll off to 0 when perpendicular to the camera.

[3__]

Hava look at Afterburn for 3DSMax. Have also done similar things with curved sprites in Houdini (see avatar pic). Works great for stylized fx. Dissipating it nicely can be a bit tricky tho... Also convincing interaction with animated objects.