Hello Guys, 
For a current project i need to make a storm in phoenixFD, and my client wants a supercell clouds …
So, interesting challenge …
I will post my current test soon but i was wondering how you guys would aproach a sim like that. ?
Basically what i’m doing so far is to create a 10km mesh rotating slowly , add a largescale smoke preset ( with some tweaks like in the cloud tutorial in chaosgroup help ).
Maybe a sim for the large clouds on the top and an other for the supercell ?
I don 't have too musch time to test so i wanted to have your insight before starting in a wrong direction.
Thanks
C?dric
Hello Again,
So the mesh option is not so bad but i need a bit more control so i will test with a Particles system now …
If you have any tips or experience with that, i’m all ears
Looking good! Maybe with an additional path follow or vortex force you can add some spinning too and it would pretty much shape up
Thanks svetlin ! Ok i will try path follow, at the moment there is already a vortex force but it doesn’t affect so much the simulation.
Nice challenge! I would go with the shape setup you have, maybe have a vortex force and output velocity/advection origin to slow it down (precise tracing method) for scale purposes at render time. What I did for a tornado in the passed is to also spawn particles on the mesh that move horizontally around the mesh (with a lock bond). Use these particles as an extra emitter to spawn extra details. It could work, who knows … and of course a flickering light which changes position/intensity to act as the lightning 
Also it looks very uniform, maybe worth emitting the main body smoke using a mask (noise or swirl).. I’m going to have a little go at it too I think as got a little down time!
* sorry just seen you are using the vortex force
Keep us updated
Thanks for the tips Adam !
Yes i was planning to slow it down a lot with precise tracing, for the moment the problem I have is that i can’t really control the shape, i’m just hopping it looks good and f i have any comment i can be in trouble, so yeah i will definitely add a particles system to have more control !
Thanks for all the help ! I will keep you posted tomorrow Cheers !
Had a little play, I see what you mean with controlling the expanding shape! My next approach would probably have the inner core in a separate sim and the outer parts in another sim that dissipates more.
Very cool Adam ! really like the lighnings, here is mine, still the old mesh method, i need to figure out how i can had more details with particles now. Low res sim and it’s way too fast… i think i will play it at 0.3 speed with precise tracing.
https://vimeo.com/263547325
will rework on it later… Cheers ! and thanks for the help !
Hey, are you emitting any temperature from the source? Maybe this is the reason why puffs of smoke are rapidly rising up..
hey Svetlin yes it is set to 2000 and smoke to 5 i will change it right away then ! thanks
Do you know if I can have noisy clouds at the bottom and blurry one on the top ? like the ones in the first ref ?
Thanks a lot for your input
Hey,
Ideally the simulation will naturally produce these, but if you want to help it, maybe you could either use a 3ds Max drag force that will only affect the top part of the sim and fadeout as it nears the ground, or alternatively you might use a Phoenix Turbulence with Decay and place it at the mid-bottom of the sim (eventually you might move it further down because the decay will act in a spherical fashion.
Cheers!
I used precise tracing with mine (simulated 140 frames and stretched it out to 1400 frames). Output Velocity and Advection Origin when simulating. Then use the playback controls in the Input panel, set the blend method to precise tracing. So you can now either set a play speed or use cache index to keyframe it.
OK thanks, i forgot the advection origin, can you use playback control AND loop cache together ?
Ah, that’s not supported currently unfortunately 
