Particle effects (smoke/gunfire/bullet impacts)

[WelshZeCorgi]

Anyone ever try making particle effects, other than smoke and fire of course, I've seen those before.

 

 

I'm thinking of making a diorama where a tank and infantry are coming under machine gun fire and I wanted to model bullet impacting armor and dirt along with the infantry returning fire.

[Will Vale]

"Particle effects" - I detect a videogames/CGI influence

 

I've seen quite a few people in the fantasy figures line do droplets and airborne blood trails using combinations of clear plastic, bristles and resins which looked pretty good. For bullets you might be able to do something similar with painted wire or clear rod for sparks and tracers, and attach chunks of shrapnel to the wires by corners so they don't look too connected? I think the key would be to layer up the different "particle" types, just like CGI, and use either clever painting or LEDs to show the impact energy.

 

I've seen (somewhere) a diorama of a D9 bulldozer smashing through a wall, which was really well executed - it looked like loose fragments of concrete, although I imagine they were wired to the blade and each other for support. I think it was called "Knock Knock" but I can't find a picture. (FWIW I thought it was in somewhat poor taste as I think it depicted house clearance In Gaza, but maybe that was just my interpretation.)

 

I'd be interested to see what other people can dig up - I've got a figure that would look *really* good breaking through a plate glass window, but it would be hard to do it justice. Maybe 3D printing in a transparent material would work?

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[modelman182]

On 10/6/2018 at 12:57 PM, Will Vale said:

I'd be interested to see what other people can dig up - I've got a figure that would look *really* good breaking through a plate glass window, but it would be hard to do it justice. Maybe 3D printing in a transparent material would work?

Hmmm.. now THAT resonates - I have a small Iron Man figure that might look good in that sort of scenario . Thanks for the idea.

 

Kev

[noelh]

From personal experience of seeing bullet impacts. It's often no more than a little puff of dust unless for example the bullets hit something like a stick or rock which produces a bigger impact and scatters stuff around. 

Now of course if it's .50 calibre machine gun! Never seen that in reality but there are videos. Don't know how you'd replicate that.

[WelshZeCorgi]

This is sort of the effect I was hoping, but some suspect that this is just photoshopped in. 

[WelshZeCorgi]

What material makes the most realistic smoke? People usually seem to go for cotton balls but the threads are too short and curled to mimic smoke perfectly. 

[WelshZeCorgi]

[Pilgrim_UK]

Seen this effect before to very good effect.