Make steam / smoke / small fog

[petter2304]

How would one go about making coffee steam without using Phoenix? I'm interested in both still image and animation but really dont know where to start.

Something like this https://image.freepik.com/free-photo/hot-coffee-cup-tea-steam-vapor_101276-151.jpg

[maru]

You could possibly model some kind of mesh, like a cylinder, and simulate it, even using 3ds Max Cloth modifier (but that would require a lot of experimenting).
Or you could use other free tools / plugins - tyFlow? Blender?
tyFlow actually has some VDB tools built in - you can make a particle simulation and turn it into a VFB grid.

[wilbertvandenbroek]

Or go for the post production approach and add the smoke in After Effects or whatever program you use. I'm a big fan of Embergen nowadays. Realtime volumetrics.

[pokoy]

Yes, Embergen is great - affordable, fast (GPU), easy to setup, lots of fun since it runs in realtime for small sims. Exports to vdb, no problem for Corona.
https://jangafx.com/software/embergen/

I got it back in beta and could spend all day having fun with it.

[burnin]

quick and dirty, malformed cylinder... as maru suggested ;)


edit / forgot to mention
- solidify, subdivide smoke, optionally add noise texture