Getting Thick FumeFX Smoke

[TwiiK]

I've only tried FumeFX a little bit, but if I remember correctly you could get thick smoke like that rather easily:

- You need a light with shadows and 'atmosphere shadows' turned on.
- You need to add that light to your FumeFX simulation by going to the 'illumination' tab and picking the light so it shows up in the list
- In the 'rendering' tab you have to make sure that 'cast shadows' is ticked off in the 'smoke' rollout.
- Also, in the 'smoke' rollout is 'opacity' which controls the overall density of your smoke. Higher means thicker smoke.
- Sadly, the most important thing for getting your smoke to look nice, thick and detailed like that is your simulation spacing and thus your simulation time. Your spacing has to be pretty low to get the kind of results visible in the video you're linking to.

[dpqstudios]

I tried that... didnt quite do it, but it did get me further than I currently am now. Thanks anyways because it still help me learn a few things. If there's any more tips or whatnot I'd be grateful. Thanks all.

[Glacierise]

It's all about the lighting! To get this effect, just boost the opacity, and add a light that is positioned 60-90 deg from the camera, and turn shadows on. And yes, you'll need high resolution - it's pretty high on that example.

[circusboy]

The way to emit more smoke is to increase the set value on the source as well.
-try 20 or 40.

[subbz2k]

not a secret prescription but then i want to achieve thick smoke i usually use a low burn rate combined with a high heat production and a fairly low initial temperature on the emitter itself. i also use cubic interpolation, turn the advection stride parameter quite low and enable fuel creates smoke with a density of around 4-5. combined with - as already mentioned - a small scale parameter this gives some pretty detailed smoke thats getting thicker and thicker as the time passes by.

as for the shading there was already mentioned enough. but one thing to remember is to always simulate with fluid mapping and use a 100% map in the smoke to drive its opacity. this not only adds to the realism but sometimes just enables enough shadowing in the smoke to make it look thick.

hope this helps.
cheers

[Via-Art]

Maybe its because you aren't adding the surroundings(plane,objects,etc) and also add a gravity vector because that's how the smoke hit the ground in that clip of yours. You dont even need to simulate fuel for that effect. If you want it to look more real also, turn cast shadows and receive shadows on... maybe soften the edge of objects a bit, and definitely turn fluid mapping on if you want more detail.

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