Smoke Signals

[Lummers]

Hi, im after some tips or process on the best route to go down to get the effect of smoke signals using Maya

Right now i have a standard sim setup with an emission of smoke over a few frames then to 0 to get a puff effect, this goes up into the air and slowy dissipates over a period of time. With this repeated i get a nice puff of smoke like a smoke signal.

What i would like to do is have a natural looking puff of smoke travel up into the sky and slowly form a shape like a simple cube, triangle, star but still keep the effect of the smoke acting like smoke as it drifts up and dissipates so it takes the form of the shape enough so you can visually see it has but then it goes back into a normal smoke cloud if this makes sense
I have tried to form the shape from emission but with surface force or volume inject it just ends up like a normal smoke sim and goes into a mushroom effect.

I have also tried the body force which i cant get to hold the shape straight away.
If i have a cube in the sky it mushrooms up as usual goes past the cube then starts to come back down to fill the cube, no matter what i tweak within the parameters i cant seem to get it to hold the shape from the start but look natural

Am i going down the right route for this effect or am i missing something else that would help?? Any help appreciated!

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,
I would say that the Body Force would be the way to go - can you show us what happens and possibly a reference of what you're trying to do?

[Lummers]

Hi Georgi,

So unfortunately i dont have the scene anymore where i was using the body force, it crashed and im in the process of trying it again.

But please see attached the test i have at the moment of the smoke signals as a gif.

Also attached are 2 images, one showing the sequence of the gif animation and the other to what i would like to achieve.

Basically i want the movement of the smoke as it is at the beginning, as it rises up it forms a shape, any shape, but here i did a cube then as it carries on up past the cube, then disperses out of the shape naturally and then dissipates until its gone. All feeling smooth.

When using the body force the smoke mushrooms up as it does in the gif, i have a dummy cube higher up from the emitter for it to morph into, but the smoke rises up and goes through the cube gets to a point beyond the cube and then travels back downwards towards the cube, then starts to take the form after a few back and forth movements
I'v played with the distance settings, and spread etc but each time it does this, just need it to natural rise but hold the shape

ideally what i want is it to head towards the cube, when it reaches the cube straight away starts to take form of the shape whilst still travelling up naturally if this makes sense??

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

Here is an example scene that I think it covers what you're after. It has the Body Force animate over time so that it stops affecting the sim and then a Plain Force and a Turbulence Force are used to push the smoke away.
In order to make it pull the smoke in the cube shape you need to balance the most of the options of the Body Force - it has to pull just enough but not too strong, you need to dampen the velocity once it gets into the box but at the same time you need the right spread speed so that the cube can be filled - so it's a tricky one

Hope this helps!

[Lummers]

Thats brilliant Georgi thank you for taking the time.
Gives me something to play with, i found the same that its finding that happy balance between all the settings but this is a big help! So thank you!

[georgi.zhekov]

Cheers! Glad that it works for you!