Hasta La Motion!

Hey there,
I’m a student currently trying to recreate the scene from the movie STEALTH where one plane flies through a ring of jet fuel in mid air causing a massive ring shaped explosion. I’m just having issues getting the fluid textures to look right. I have gnomonworkshop, digital tutors, and modernMayhem tutorials for fluids but I really havn’t seen anything that goes over texturing fluids in elaborate detail.

My approach right now is to make 3 different fluid containers. One for the jet’s flames, one for the gas in the air, and one for the explosion afterward. I will then through expressions use the container from the jet to ignite the fuel in one container which will then transfer its heat to the explosion container. I figure I have to do this in order to be able to texture the gas differently from the explosion. I have no problem getting the explosion to look right, but the veiny, wispy fluid for the gas is giving me trouble. Attached is the 3sec clip that I am trying to recreate. If anyone knows a good workflow for obtaining this look or knows of a tutorial that goes over texturing fluids in-depth it would be greatly appriciated. Also if you think of a better way of going about this I would love to hear it.

Thanks,
Matt

Attached Files

refrence.mov (468.4 KB)