Realistic Smoke / Fog

[Kamlanie]

Hello all i hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I have been looking all over the interwebz for a tutorial on how to make realistic smoke / fog. All the tutorials I have seen are ok, but not exactly what I am looking for. I want to know how to make the smoke look like its reacting to the resistance of air thus changing the shape of the smoke as it moves and what not.

Here is an example of what i mean http://us.blizzard.com/_flash/b20-sparkles.swf

Notice how the smoke is going down and also to the right. The smoke moving downward even reacts to the flow stream of the one going to the right and slightly alters its movement ( as if it was hitting a current in water ).

if anyone knows how to make something this complex / beautiful, please let me know

[goliard]

You seem to be asking for a tutorial in something both realistic and animated. Why would you want to spend a lot of time drawing realistic smoke? Anyway, here are a couple of traditionally drawn smoke sequences, and a photoshop tutorial:

http://vimeo.com/11513882 animated smoke #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pgllmT-GhM animated smoke #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnNlrGbXLsY #3 - photoshop tutorial

HTH
G.

[MacPerson]

That is amazing... is it really done in flash?

[Nig 13]

Nope - you can see by the medium quality, that it's a video. So, the effect is rendered in a software like Adobe After Effects, and imported to Flash as a video
Although, I'm not sure how the smoking effect is done, but those glowing sparkles, are particles generated and given special effects

See the HD VIDEO HERE

Oh, wait, that's made by Blizzard, those who made World of Warcraft - so, nothing less expected!

[MacPerson]

Thanks for the answer.