Animating Fog

Wakakanada

I am working on a Halloween themed animation which will definitely be ready for Halloween...just not sure the year yet...

Anyways, one of the things I would like to learn to do is to animate fog in the scene. I don't really know much about much yet, just play around with creating aniblocks and subtracts and then edit stuff together that isn't bad. This is only my second animation attempt. {For anyone who is interested, my first project "Bambi meets Godzilla 2K11" is on Vimeo at http://vimeo.com/25696452 }

For this project I will likely just go with rendering using a fog camera at a basic setting from Atmospheric Effects Cameras for DAZ Studio, and then layering in another layer of fog in iMovie. Not too sophisticated or likely the best effects, but we learn as we do.

I do want to think about how to really get some good fog for future projects, though, as I love demoned themed stuff, so I'm sure the opportunity will arise again. I think animating on an object of some sort in the scene is the missing element, but am looking for others guidance and experience. I'm at a basic level but think I can understand the necessary concepts.

Also, is Fog Tool Deluxe III obsolete now? It seems to be an older product but I saw it on my wish list from years ago.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

Richard Haseltine

The Fog Tool is essentially a set of planes, each semi-opaque so that you get the sense of fog or mist. It still works, but all those transparencies can slow things down nearly as much as using a volume shader on a piece of geometry. Fog Tool, if it will do what you want, is probably easy to animate than creating a model of a mist layer with morphs for movement and then applying a volume shader, though.

Wakakanada

Thanks Richard. I ended up with an effect I am satisfied with: I took three separate png files of fog, then combined two in iMovie [as you can only work with two video/picture sources at one time in a project] both using Ken Burns effect in different directions, speeds, and opacities; then took that finished movie and put it into iMovie again with the third fog png, and did the same thing over again. Then took the new "three fog movie" and layered that over the main animation with opacity set to achieve the desired level. While I would ideally have liked some fog in the scene behind some characters, the result is sufficiently satisfactory for this stage of my development.

Wakakanada

Hi Richard, I posted my video with the fog. I ended up doing a similar technique with the fire at the end and was pretty happy with the results. As always, your insight is greatly appreciated. If you are interested, the link on YouTube is: http://youtu.be/yKowsXuvth4

Richard Haseltine

Thanks, you've put a lot of work and ideas into that.