After Effects Smoke Effect

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can go two different routes:
1- get stock footage of smoke or shoot that element yourself. All you need is a decent camera, a black cloth, a light on the side and a cigarette. Poke a hole through the cloth, get a straw (black if you can and set your camera straight on. Blow smoke through the straw from behind the cloth.
2- Use a particle system, Particular would be best.
Here are a few links for that:
https://www.videocopilot.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6331
https://lesterbanks.com/2010/10/particular-volumetric-smoke-in-after-effects/
https://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-create-realistic-animated-smoke-after-effects-255544/

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Eddy Rose]

Well I guess my first question would be, why didn’t you just film her blowing smoke into the camera? Even if she’s not a smoker, one puff for the sake of acting isn’t going to kill anyone.

This tutorial might be helpful,
https://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/vfx/put-out-realistic-candle-smoke/

[Sarah Treanor]

Ted,
Thanks so much for your response,
I have played around with loads of particle systems and with the help of those great tutorials you posted I’m on my way to getting exactly what I was looking for,

Also, I am also really interested in trying filming it if I could manage to get my hands on a good quality camera, thanks for the tips on that.

Thanks a million for your help!!

Sarah

[Sarah Treanor]

Thanks for your response Eddy,

I did try filming it but because I don’t have access to a high quality camera it’s not turning out very well atall!
But I’ve desided to recreate the smoke using particle simulations,

Thanks for the link to the tutorial it’s gonna be very useful for this project I’m working on,

Sarah