ATPA Lesson 3B: Drift Smoke

DISCLAIMER: The ATPA Lessons are a self-service pyro academy from the days of vPyro. I saved the lessons from the academy back in 2011 before the site went down for good, and feel that they should be accessible again, not just as a historical record of what was, but also for new pyromaniacs to learn the ropes in the same way that many of us did so many years ago. Because of their age, the videos included with the academy are of a lackluster quality, and some of the information in these lessons is outdated. In the name of history, I wish to preserve these lessons as they are, but as a recognition of how out-dated some of the advice can be, I will strikethrough and italicize the text of any information that should be ignored. If you run into questions or issues, leave a reply.

Also, the lessons ask for you to submit a video of your progress. Feel free to reply to the lessons with your submissions! Some of us old vPyro vets would love to see and comment on your progress and creations. 😊

- StickyGum32

3B – Drift Smoke

This lesson is one of the harder basics lessons (you may have noticed the change in title color), but it is a very important addition to get your shells to look natural in the sky. Drift smoke is a dance of subtlety - too much and it will look too heavy and artificial.

Drift smoke is a lovely effect that leaves a ghosted movement behind.

1. Begin by opening the 3A lesson comet (the one with the die-off emitter). To create a smoke trail, you need two emitters - add two children from the Outer Glow like this:

2. The first emitter will act as an invisible tail. Click on the first emitter and open the Emitter Rate panel. Give the emitter around 60 particles and set the Start Time to 0.05 and the End Time to 0.70. The reason why you're stopping the smoke effect at 70% is because this particular effect maxes out and drops before it dies out. For smoke, this is going to create a bunching of particles that will make your smoke lose its believability. For most effects, you want the smoke to stretch the entire length of the effect - Keep this in mind when you apply smoke to other effects.
3. Open the Emitter Speed panel and set the Parent to 0.00 - this creates a tail from the head of the firework to the base. In the same panel, add some sphere to randomize the tail. When you are happy with the result, change the Particle Life to 0.05 and make the particle invisible (set the size to 0).
4. Select the second emitter and add 1 particle to the Emitter Rate panel. You should now see the familiar tail once again - go to the Emitter Speed panel and add some speed to the tail - this is what is going to cause the 'drift'. Don't make it too fast - something around 2.00 will do just fine.
5. This next step creates the drift - Open the Emitter Rotation panel and uncheck Particle Relative. This will ensure that your smoke drifts in one single direction. Select the SpinOffsetZ category and change this to 4.71. This will create a universal drift to the left - you can choose other drift directions, however you are limiting yourself from using any other effects based of their drift direction. There is a classic drift problem between ID firework packs and AD firework packs.

6. If you've gotten this far and your effect looks like this, congratulations! You're not too far off now. Smoke is going to need some time to develop and fade off, so we need to increase its life. Open the Particle Life panel and give it a good 4.00 seconds with 30% randomness. You should now see your white particle tail slowly drift away from the firework's head. If you look closely, the particles themselves should be drifting at slightly different speeds.
7. Now that you have the smoke moving like smoke, it's time to make it look like smoke. Open the Particle Basics panel and do this:

It looks like black nothingness, but that is how transparent your smoke needs to be! The more transparent the better. As always, experiment with different styles. I used D8 (D6) for my smoke but you can try other soft edge particle styles. Be sure your smoke fades to black completely.

Now your smoke should be shaping up nicely - if it is nice and transparent, drifting to the side and fading out smoothly, you've done everything correctly!

8. Either rename or save over your Pearl Comet. Submit a video showing multiple comets with drift smoke.

I hope I didn't lose anyone with this lesson - it is the harder of the Basics tutorials, but oh so essential to designing beautiful, realistic fireworks.

Next Lesson: Lesson 3C - Launch Sparks

Edited April 22Apr 22 by StickyGum32