Ghostly fog... how?

legrevedotcom

legrevedotcom

Veteran
Now before you jump the gun and refer to previous threads... I have searched and failed.

What I want to do is pretty precise, but I'm not sure if I can do it in AE alone without first pulling the footage through Cinema 4D or similar.

I have a shot clip of 4-5 secs from the actors pov looking down a corridor. At the end I want a ghostly greyish fog/smoke to slowly expand maybe swirl slightly to give a bit of dynamics.
Can this be done alone with Particular and if so, do I need to map the hallway? Mind you again... we're talking about 4-5 secs at the most.
 
I am no particular expert... BUT... seems you could track an emitter to an actor and play with the physics, air resistance, etc... and get some fog to "react" as actors pass. You wouldn't need much motion to sell the effect.

You could also render out just the fog plate and warp/distort it with the distorting brush effect (whatever it's called, you animate twists and curls and such) to perfect it.

I've done a lot of stuff with smoke and fog plates that I've shot over black, and the diffuse nature of the stuff makes it fairly easy to "Sell" with some tweaking.
 
Search on youtube for 'after effects 3D fog'. If you use particulars/emitters you can work with 3D layers and animate your fog on your Z-Axis so it goes towards the camera.

I made some very realistic 2D fog slowly animating across the frame by using the simple fractal noise effect on a blank composition without using any particulars or emitters. It could also be possible to use this technique and turn your layers into 3D in After Effects and animate towards the camera.

Create a new composition and add the 'fractal noise' effect. Animate it over time so it moves slowly across your composition. Also key frame the 'evolution' setting of the fractal noise so that the fog appears to appear and disappear. Next add a 'Vector blur' and this creates the fog/smoke effect. Duplicate this layer a couple times and each time adjust the evolution, rotation, animation speed and size of the layer to make each layer look different and add some overall depth to your fog.

You can use the mask tool shape your fog, then turn it into a 3D layer and rotate the compositions towards your camera so they appear to come out from the doorway towards the camera.
 
Thank you both... I've seen some examples of Video Co's smoke plates and I like the idea. Maybe I'll try that out at some point.

Starcentral great tip, and how logic. For some reason it didn't occur to me that I should just align the z-axis with the floor of the room. That basicly makes the deal.
Thanks, I'll upload the finished sequence once it's done.
 
Bad compression effects, but here is a series of 2D fog clips created in AE without using emitters or particular plug-in.

 
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