Smoke & Pixels

So I want the exhaust trails for the vehicles in this film to be scribble lines that expand or "bloom" the longer they hang in the air. I figured I'd try to implement Maya's Paint Effects for this.

In order to be truly lazy, I found a way to have the paint strokes derived from curves that trace through particles affected by a dynamic field. Geez, did I really just write that?

It is a bigger pain than it sounds like, but now that all the work on the front end is done, I have a way to generate a variety of scribble styles and and shapes with relatively little effort.


Firstly, make lots of dots.


Then, connect them.



Add texture, and call it done.
Also handy for endorsing checks.


Big Thanks to the indestructible Brian Coffee for his Melscripting help!