Animating with Blender

Fire and Smoke

Let’s pretend for a moment that instead of ending peacefully, the battle between the Beast and the dog had escalated even further, resulting in a small statuette being hurled through the TV screen. The desired effect is the one seen in Figure 14.38: a television with a large hole in the center, coughing up smoke. The key to this sort of particle effect, as well as to fire and “magic sparkle” effects, lies almost entirely in the materials. The basic motion of the particle system is simple: a small emitter object with Normal velocity activated, a slight positive AccZ force value so that the smoke rises, and a bit of Brownian motion to give it some swirl. A typical configuration can be found in Figure 14.39.

Figure 14.38. The Beast ...