rocket smoke emission

[flitch13]

I am working on a short clip where a man straps a rocket to the back of a wagon and shoots himself off screen. For safety reasons (no duh), the jet of flame and smoke are being done in post. The flame itself is no problem, but I am having trouble with the smoke. As of right now, I'm just using particle playground to create the smoke. It looks....Ok. The biggest problem I am having is the smoke is floating off way too soon. I was wondering if there is any way of coaxing it to stay in the shot of a second or two? Or perhaps a whole other approach to the thing? I'm not all that experience with particles.:huh:
-flitch

 

[sink]

is it dispersing too soon or is it's life too short?

 

[flitch13]

It left the scene too soon(in the direction of the gravity). I fixed it by changing the particles affected by gravity determined by its age....still kinda confused as to why gravity would affect particles even when set to zero. Whatever.

 

[kai]

Your best bet is to pick up Particular. Far better particle system than the playground imho.

 

[flitch13]

Yea that would be nice....but that stuff costs money. and I don't have much of that. So I made due with particle playground. If anyone wants to critique it that would be much appreciated. http://www.belgumboys.net/flitchfilms/comcast.html. Unfortunately the whole flash video thing doesn't give the best quality.
-flitch

 

[Matt Grunau]

I can make one with Illusion, if you would like.

 

[flitch13]

Thanks, but I think I got it done. I should have hacked away at it just a little longer before asking for help.