Mushroom Cloud

Have you ever played Empire Earth 2 ? you can get a hint about mushroom clouds.

uh...?

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Original post by Laz uh...?

hehe

I think that Command and Conquer: Generals had a mushroom cloud for the explosion of a nuke, and IIRC, they just used a model (with animations?). There's a demo available here, but I doubt they included the nuke in it. I can't think of any other games that had mushroom clouds like the ones you describe...

Hmm, I will say your style of posting leaves something to be desired (requiring demos of ideas, replying back with "uh...", etc.), however I'll bite with what I know/recall, and you can bump my rating up or down depending.

Junk answer: Quake2's rocket launcher used a "mushroom cloud" of sorts for the explosion. It wasn't prerendered (and it looked like junk, q3's prerendered one looked much cooler.)
That said, it's probably not much help to you since you *probably* wanted a cool implementation of the effect.

I don't know of any good ones, -but- I saw what might work well (particle effect) for such an effect:

Interactive 3D Lighting in Sprites Rendering I imagine this, coupled with smart color + ambient values for the emitted particles could create a good/great mushroom cloud effect.

You can mess with trig functions to generate the right shape, or, if you're craze, search up fluid dynamics simulators and use some hacked, but still realistic physics for the effect.

So, my take, you just need a good emitter, and some decent lighting effects.
Btw, yes, the article is on gamasutra, which requires *free* registration. And yes, if you won't register, then you suck.

My (rather rough around the edges) 2 cents worth,

-Michael g.

p.s. Bonus info (you'll have to dig though): there was a link to cloud rendering (and lighting) from opengl.org a while ago. It featured anistrophic (sp?) lighting and multiscattering effects. Although these are totally un-needed afaik for what you're doing, the theory behind vertex shaders and what-not may be very useful to your endevour if you end up using particle systems.

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Original post by Thr33d Hmm, I will say your style of posting leaves something to be desired (requiring demos of ideas, replying back with "uh...", etc.), however I'll bite with what I know/recall, and you can bump my rating up or down depending. Junk answer: Quake2's rocket launcher used a "mushroom cloud" of sorts for the explosion. It wasn't prerendered (and it looked like junk, q3's prerendered one looked much cooler.) That said, it's probably not much help to you since you *probably* wanted a cool implementation of the effect. I don't know of any good ones, -but- I saw what might work well (particle effect) for such an effect: Interactive 3D Lighting in Sprites Rendering I imagine this, coupled with smart color + ambient values for the emitted particles could create a good/great mushroom cloud effect. You can mess with trig functions to generate the right shape, or, if you're craze, search up fluid dynamics simulators and use some hacked, but still realistic physics for the effect. So, my take, you just need a good emitter, and some decent lighting effects. Btw, yes, the article is on gamasutra, which requires *free* registration. And yes, if you won't register, then you suck. My (rather rough around the edges) 2 cents worth, -Michael g. p.s. Bonus info (you'll have to dig though): there was a link to cloud rendering (and lighting) from opengl.org a while ago. It featured anistrophic (sp?) lighting and multiscattering effects. Although these are totally un-needed afaik for what you're doing, the theory behind vertex shaders and what-not may be very useful to your endevour if you end up using particle systems.

I replied with "uh..." because his post left me thinking that. If I play a game I can get a hint about mushroom clouds? What's that supposed to mean? I'm not looking for a hint of mushroom clouds... heh.

Thanks for the info, I'll look at the information you provided. And I have a gamasutra account already, therefore, I do not suck (well, I tell myself that at least, it makes me feel a little better).

And I wasn't so much asking for demos of ideas. I was asking for demos of the effect if anyone had seen one. I wasn't sure how else to expand on what it was I wanted. Seemed to me I was asking a pretty straight-forward question.

Command and Conquer: Generals did indeed had a badass mushroom cloud for the nuke. To me, it looks like a bunch of animated textures on billboards, or maybe just a particle system, I'm not entirely sure. There's this screnshot from the C&C generals website that shows what it looks like:

The ground-level smoke is obviously just a particle system, and to me it looks like it's made up of several seperate parts; the base smoke, the main shaft of the could, the head of it, and the halo.
If you animate each part of the cloud seperately, you should be able to get something looking pretty cool.

The Quake II rocket launcher used an animated mesh, and that looked a bit rubbish IMO. But if you get a pretty high resolution mesh (The Quake II one looks like it only has about 100 triangles), and maybe throw in some particles you could probably get something looking pretty good.

That C&C shot looks cool, thanks <3

Didn't Rise of Nations also have a mushroom cloud effect?

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Original post by Laz uh...?

Presumably he means that Empire Earth 2 has a decent mushroom cloud effect and if you play it you'll be able to see the demo of the effect you were asking about...

http://graphics.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/papers/stanford2003-02.pdf

Obviously you couldn't do that directly, but some of the ideas still hold, ie. don't use full 3d fluid dynamics, fake it with 2d slices and add some noise. Maybe a bit advanced, but something to shoot for anyway. :)

I remember an aircraft simulator that allowed you to drop nuclear warheads. Quite fun and realistic, it blinded you temporarily, and the craft shook arround after being hit with the blast wave...

...can't remember the name of the game though...

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Original post by Prozak I remember an aircraft simulator that allowed you to drop nuclear warheads. Quite fun and realistic, it blinded you temporarily, and the craft shook arround after being hit with the blast wave... ...can't remember the name of the game though...

F22-Lightning Strike.. good times :D (or was it F22-raptor?)

I think the flash is a good thing to hide the formation of the cloud which is harder to make.

Other than that I'd separate the mushroom into components:

1. Base particles: a particle system that spreads out the particles slowly
2. Trunk - a cylinder with a tilable texture which is shifted up so it looks like dust is going up. Blend it and you can try to make the base
3. The top blob: a particle system spreading out in the horizontal direction and a little in the vertical direction.

Guys I'm gonna give my secret away for cool looking explosions. I bought the CD ($400 or so) and the quality is awesome...

Artbeats ReelExplosions!

That is ReelExplosions 3 but all of their stock CDs are worth looking at. You can get a free fire clip for signing up and the starter kits are a good value too. I love Artbeats. These things are recorded with super slow mo cameras and WILL look better than any hand-made particle system, at least for realism.

I did a reasonable mushroom cloud using geometry with animated scaling, overlaid with lots of particles, shockwaves etc - it didnt look like a "real" nuclear explosion as such, but it looked very "awe inspiring" - which for the most part is what you want...

[S]

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Original post by Ilici Quote: Original post by Prozak I remember an aircraft simulator that allowed you to drop nuclear warheads. Quite fun and realistic, it blinded you temporarily, and the craft shook arround after being hit with the blast wave... ...can't remember the name of the game though... F22-Lightning Strike.. good times :D (or was it F22-raptor?) I think the flash is a good thing to hide the formation of the cloud which is harder to make. Other than that I'd separate the mushroom into components: 1. Base particles: a particle system that spreads out the particles slowly 2. Trunk - a cylinder with a tilable texture which is shifted up so it looks like dust is going up. Blend it and you can try to make the base 3. The top blob: a particle system spreading out in the horizontal direction and a little in the vertical direction.

Obligatory screenshots:

Is that F22-Lighting 3? It looks like it and I remember playing the demo which had you drop a nuke on some base or something. It was pretty cool looking I thought at the time.

What I liked about the C&C:G nuke effect was that it looked bright, and they didn't even use HDR! :) I'm betting the whole thing was using particle systems.


-SirKnight

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Original post by SirKnight Is that F22-Lighting 3? It looks like it and I remember playing the demo which had you drop a nuke on some base or something. It was pretty cool looking I thought at the time. What I liked about the C&C:G nuke effect was that it looked bright, and they didn't even use HDR! :) I'm betting the whole thing was using particle systems. -SirKnight

Yes, the demo. I never got around to buying the game - went for helicopter sims instead (just started Commanche4 actually). The demo is still available for download from a number of file repositories like download.com.

I did some fluid simulation...

Some time after heating one cell to ungodly temperature. Red is temperature, green is matter density(higher at lower heights because of gravitation), blue is speed, white dots is particles dragged by fluid (particles are randomply deleted and re-added). This red thing would form into more defined mushroom cloud if shockwaves wouldn't be reflected and wouldn't "strike back" before it happens. Still, there are definately a fireball with strong vertical flow under it. In reality, this flow sucks dust from ground and looks like column of mushroom

But it probably isn't very practical for game, except maybe for pre-calculating animation of velocity field (in 2D slice) and then using it to move particles.
I can give source code but it actually sucks(and performance sucks). At first time after heating it shows some kind of cross (because grid is square). I had to cut some effects to achieve greater stability. Maybe I'll try doing it with hexagonal cells