Artillery explosion WIP [animation]

Hello,

since quite some time I try to get a fairly realistic animation of the explosion of an artillery shell (not a very large one).

I try to use the Smoke Sim with particles emitting smoke. But I just don#t get a reasonable result. I feel that I don’t see what I should really change anymore, so I hope someone here can give me some new ideas.

Here are two examples of what I have:

[video]http://vid741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/Herr_Bpunkt/3D/Blender_Explosion/explosion_7_0001-0050.mp4[/video]

[video]http://vid741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/Herr_Bpunkt/3D/Blender_Explosion/explosion_5_0001-0050.mp4[/video]

I know they are really bad… has someone here done this before?

Here is my current .blend-file:

Thank you!

Best regards,
Thorsten

I have not, these actually look fairly promising. Kick up the density/volume in the smoke settings and make sure you use the smoke+fire setting. Having a main explosion to supplement the particle smoke could be very useful too.

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried to increase the density multiplier, but the first one actually looks dense enough compared to photographs. Increasing it even further gives a really unnatural look, more like a solid body.

I am feeling that the main problem I have is morely related to the timing or shaping of the particle tracks. But I just can’t find exactly what’s wrong with it, or how to make it better.

What do you mean with a main explosion?

Cheers,
Thorsten

Here is a new try:

Is it getting better? What could I change to make it more realistic?

Cheers,
Thorsten