C4D Lighting Question

[extraordinarymachine]

I got my scene set up and modeled. It is being light by HDR map. Everything looks fine but I have one problem that has been posing a problem. There is a thin, whispy smoke rising through the middle of the frame, made with some changing splines unded a loft nurb. Sometimes it is clear and reflects the green light off the HDR naturally but other times it is extremely thick and looks just plan green, like liquid not smoke (or steam), it is supposed to mimic steam as if it was rising off of coffee. Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/2774/coffee.tif

[Raptor365]

Right now it looks like your leaning towards a vector logo type look. Is that what your striving for and just want the steam to be more, steamy?

Or are you looking for a more realistic smokey look?

It's hard to say without knowing what your intent is. I wouldn't use an HDRI on smoke though? Any reason for doing that? Again, I'm not sure what your after.

[extraordinarymachine]

I really like how the HDRI looks on some text but basically I don't want it affecting the steam. Yeah, I am trying to make it look more steamy. Very wispy and clear as opposed to how thick it is right now.

[extraordinarymachine]

Or probably better explained. How the steam looks at the top of the picture, clear, compared to the bottom is what I am going for. I'm still figuring out the details to C4D but is there a way I can tag the steam to not be affected by the HDRI sky light?

[oneinfiniteloop]

Right click your Loft nurbs steam and add a compositing tag. Deselect the Seen by GI option and any others if you don't want reflections, shadows, etc.

[extraordinarymachine]

Took a lot of tweaking.

Thanks guys, big help.