Space explosions

[Laserschwert]

Right now I am having trouble creating those kinds of fiery (near) zero-g explosions that can be seen in the latest Star Wars movies. Like this one from "Rogue One":



I am aware that these explosions consist of several parts, tons of glowy particles flying off, some of them creating smoke trails, etc. But I already have trouble creating that fiery main explosion, starting out as pure fire, not turning into smoke before the fiery part dies. The current explosion presets (and the few tutorials I've found) all deal with ground explosions, and some of them even start out as smoke from the get go. Any ideas on how to achieve fiery, chaotic explosions like these? I bet this would make an awesome preset

[LarsSonparsson]

I would do it with fuel which is generating the smoke also.
You could try ground explosion kind of setup (quick few frame burst) , but turn the fuel on and temperature off from the source. Then simulate it using fuel, but set ignition temp below 300, like 250 or so. That way the fuel will start to burn immediately.

[Laserschwert]

Thanks, that's a good starting point. Regarding an emitter object, I guess it's best to use a particle flow burst, instead of a fixed geometry?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Yup, either particles or some heavily modified geometry. One of the keys to plausible looking explosions is to have a rough emitter surface or asymmetric particles, noise on the surface or chaotic pulsations in time in case the effect is longer lasting which would create enough diversity.

[LarsSonparsson]

Not sure, but I'm usually using both. It's easy to get good body for the explosion using geometry emitter. Then using high velocity particles to break the shape and generate some chaos.
It's really important to have enough steps per frame in the beginning of the explosion when there is really high velocities. Otherwise you don't get stable and nicely shaped explosion.