Hi
I´ve tried many ways to sculpt smoke for a 3D print of an explosion. I find it very hard to create a gaseous light feeling with dynamic energy. I hope this is not a limitation of my skill but a lack of technique!!
Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Luke
Very interesting question… I hope someone can answer this. I’m curious too.
I haven’t tried it with sculpting, but have used cauliflower as a base texture for an explosion in matte painting. Oh and a touch of broccoli as well. Perhaps using them as an alpha or direct sculpting with Spotlight might yield a starting point for futher exploration.
Cauliflower has a very similar look to billowing smoke or pyroclastic clouds from a volcanic eruption. If that is the kind of smoke you are looking for.
That is so funny because my boss keeps telling me my explosion looks like broccolli! So I´m trying to avoid vegtables!
well i tried the cauliflower and when you invert it it is a really good base for an explosion.
thanks!
Yes, I was going to recommend you go light on the broccoli and heavy on the cauliflower; eating brocolli gives you gas but oddly enough is not very gaseous looking:D .
I did a little test sculpting with cauliflower from an image grabbed off the web and it is promissing, but it seemed to lack enough dynamic range.
I think perhaps creating an HDRI image might help capture more subtle nuances. Or using several exposures as individual alphas and building them up could possibly improve the effect.
I may contimue playing around with this as sculpting something as fluid and gaseous as smoke is a wonderful challenge.
I would love to see what you come up with.
Best of luck with it!
You´re not wrong it is a big challenge to create the look and movement of gas from a solid block. It´s driving me a bit mad but there you go!
I´m using a fairly low grade image but it would be a good idea to use my own shots with a larger dynamic range.
cheers