Creating a Rocket with a Smoke Trail in Blender

by David Ward

Hello and welcome to this Blender smoke simulation tutorial on creating a smoke trailing rocket!

In this tutorial, David Ward will show you how to model a small rocket and then animate the rocket complete with a trailing smoke system.

What you will learn:

During this tutorial, David goes over creating a model of a rocket, complete with texture painting/mapping, then goes on to set up the smoke trail. David will show you how to use large domains for the smoke simulation, adding particle systems to control the smoke flow and also how to set up the volumetric materials for rendering the smoke.

Final Effect:

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Discussion

96 Responses to “Creating a Rocket with a Smoke Trail in Blender”
  1. Aaron Townley
    Posts: 3

    cool, but instead of adding all the extra edge loops you can just press “n” and at the top change the “mean crease” to “1″ to get the sharp edge.

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    51
     Apr 15, 2012 at 4:10 pm
    • Gabor
      Posts: 3

      Thanks for tha info! :)

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      51.1
       Apr 16, 2012 at 2:55 am
  2. JOHNSON VICTOR
    Posts: 6

    hey! went through some videos and reference images of smoke trails, there is usually a bit of flame or will i say flame texture at the bottom of the rocket its ejecting from? Love the tut simple and short!

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    52
     Apr 16, 2012 at 3:53 am
  3. Dennis Vassenkov
    Posts: 3

    Hey! I love the tutorial it is awesome!. But I have one problem. I made the box and that path and all, and when I am in the camera view, and I move the thing the camera is parented to, and I move the camera’s view, it’s as if the trail and the camera dissapear. So I move the camera to start position, and I see the rocket and the path, but when I move the frames a bit to move the rocket, and then move my camera to my rocket, the rocket and the path dissapear. You can see the path on the border of the camera, but when I point the camera to it, the path dissapears. Help please?

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    53
     Apr 18, 2012 at 5:03 pm
  4. Henri Laroco
    Posts: 8

    David,
    I have a serious problem with the rocket following the path. Every time I try to parent it, the parenting is completely off and the rocket follows the path in a different way (it still follows the path but 30 Blender Units away)
    Please help!

    Thanks,

    Blender Fan

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    54
     Apr 24, 2012 at 8:23 am
    • Henri Laroco
      Posts: 8

      Actually, never mind, it was just a bug! Thanks anyway! Is there a way to start the animation at a different frame though?

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      54.1
       Apr 25, 2012 at 4:32 am
  5. Dennis Vassenkov
    Posts: 3

    I have one problem. I made the box and that path and all, and when I am in the camera view, and I move the thing the camera is parented to, and I move the camera’s view, it’s as if the trail and the camera dissapear. So I move the camera to start position, and I see the rocket and the path, but when I move the frames a bit to move the rocket, and then move my camera to my rocket, the rocket and the path dissapear. You can see the path on the border of the camera, but when I point the camera to it, the path dissapears. Help please?

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    55
     May 1, 2012 at 3:44 pm
  6. Evan
    Posts: 1

    i have a problem i have followed you totorial almost perfectly except for design but when it comes time to render the some it doesnt show up. the smoke shows in the animation mode but not when I render a still of the rocket half way into the animation. can someone help?

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    56
     May 24, 2012 at 12:07 pm
    • Kevin Morris
      Posts: 1

      Im getting the same issue, does anything have a solution to this?

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      56.1
       Dec 20, 2012 at 11:06 am
      • Alex Telford
        Posts: 454

        I’d say it could be an issue with transparency, or you are in cycles not blender internal.
        -Alex

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        56.1.1
         Dec 20, 2012 at 3:59 pm
  7. Juan Nicolas Gomez
    Posts: 146

    Awesome tut, david! But when i switch from edit mode to texture paint my image in the UV image editor doesn’t show up. Can you please help?

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    57
     May 29, 2012 at 12:41 pm
  8. Luc Larabie
    Posts: 10

    here is my result, Thanks David Ward for that great tutorial!! :D

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge4ynqIArVU&feature=relmfu

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    58
     Jul 8, 2012 at 12:05 pm
  9. necorb
    Posts: 2

    Educational AND fun! Kaschuiiisch! I like the “T&E” and how you sovle it along the way! Gives a new user time to recap and such.

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    59
     Jul 25, 2012 at 4:57 pm
  11. bobueckerlele
    Posts: 12

    good info in this tut.

    A request (I’m a citizen so I figure it’s ok to make these):

    As a newer user, it’s really hard to have to stop and reconfigure something because some or another mistake was made. Every now and then is one thing but this seems to be a bi-minute situation with your vids.

    Suggestion: Try doing the tutorial sans-recording first, record the steps you took, and then use that as a cheat-sheet to make sure you’re doing the steps you intend to get across.

    I realize that you’re a modeler by profession, not a trainer, but since you’re getting paid for it you may as well follow some of the general SOPs that any other teacher-type would follow.

    Much love, hope this is taken as well-intentioned criticism.

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    61
     Dec 30, 2012 at 11:14 am
  12. nik skerbiš
    Posts: 1

    hii
    i have got one big problem
    when i made bezier and i made liki David first path constrain and than close object constrain and select follow path it didnt work. i tryed 3 times but it didnt work.
    i need help

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    62
     Jan 12, 2013 at 1:16 pm
  13. solacen
    Posts: 1

    Hmm for some reason my smoke only appears as a small black sphere behind my rocket when i render. On the 3d view it just shows a very thin whispy smoke trail.

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    63
     Feb 8, 2013 at 4:55 am
  14. nbtheawesome
    Posts: 17

    I cant figure out how to get the texture paint to work! Please help.

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    64
     Feb 17, 2013 at 5:21 am
  15. Yusuf ES
    Posts: 1

    Good tutorial. Thanks david.

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    65
     Apr 1, 2013 at 3:43 pm
  16. Donao Cousar
    Posts: 5

    When I choose smoke domain tofinsih creating the smoke for the Rocket the domain of the cube turns black
    what do i do?

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    66
     Apr 25, 2013 at 2:46 am
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