Help Making Letters Out of Smoke

[lithica]

I've got a brief come through asking if i can: 'produce a visual - Smoke, not quite CGI but manipulated. The smoke needs to look as free flowing as it can spelling out about 10 words. As if it is being blown out of an exhaust. Some experts say you can photograph the smoke and then break it down.'

I'm sure i have no idea where to start with this. I've looked around at a lot the smoke toots on the net but haven't with anything too helpful.

I was thinking of creating a sealed box and cutting out a template in the front, filling it with smoke, shooting and then removing the box in post but i still think I'm going to get hard edges and unrealistic letter forms.

I'm just kind of stuck at the moment and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions that could perhaps get my gears working.

Cheers

Andrew

[Dave.Cox]

Something like this?

In Photoshop, I created the text with the text tool in Arial Bold font. I then added a layer of 50% gray, and applied the difference cloud filter. Select the text, invert the selection, feather the selection by about 15 pixels, and delete the selection. This will leave you with something like the bottom image. Use Free Transform, and switch to the warp mode to distort it like the wind is trying to blow it away.

[Juergen D]

I used a Nagel Cloud brush. First I took the Horizontal Type Mask Tool, created the text. Then I filled it with a rather small size cloud brush, applied a motion blur to it. Next a Wind filter (from the right) and some Gaussian Blur. Lastly I used Free Transform and Skew to give it this shape.

Juergen

[0lBaldy]

http://www.dafont.com/font.php?file=alpha_clouds
http://www.dafont.com/font.php?file=alpha_smoke
(lower the opacity and use the freetransform and smudge tools to make them more realistic)

OR

Draw the letters/words freehand then freetransform shape together with the texture and colors on new layers, you can then adjust the hue, saturation, curves, levels, balance, etc of the writing to match it with the lighting and color temperature of the background... finish off by adding some noise and doing an unsharp mask so they look something like this > Smokey Text from a Genies Lamp: http://www.tmrw.co.uk/work/smokey-te...a-genies-lamp/ (contact Genies Lamp author for details)
(lower the opacity and use the smudge tool to make them more realistic)


OR

Jet Contrails: http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/trail/trail.htm
(lower the opacity and use the freetransform and smudge tools to make them more realistic)

[lithica]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, there's some great stuff here thats got my mind working in the right direction. I'm really impressed with that genies lamp image and think im going to try and work around that.
cheers
andrew

[Verywierd]

A very simple alternative. Create a blank layer, use the Render/Clouds filter to fill the entire layer. You can apply a little blur and contrast adjustment to taste. Then apply a black layer mask to hide it. Make sure you have the mask selected, then write on the mask using a soft white brush.

Working only on the mask, you can apply warp, emboss, blur and smudge to make it windblown and 3D as you like.

Adjust opacity of the layer to taste and you're done.

Because you are working only on the mask, you can change or re-do as much as you like without affecting the smoke texture.

[smoothfluid]

here's one for you to look at too:
http://abduzeedo.com/creating-smoke-...l-experiment-2
I've had a play in smoke for a job and nothing beats photographing it, and building the letters out of the images.
how to photograph smoke post

[KR1156]

use liquify for a more natural looking effect. try and render each word by word. or break it up every few letters. you really want it to look free flowing and natural...not uniform or like a fiter was ran on it.

try and tie some of the words together with some extra smoke, very faint. but second thought, now that i think about the concept...you probably want "cloudy" smoke as opposed to cigarette type of flowing smoke. liquify will still help you break up the monotony maintaining clear legibility of the type. i'm guessing it's for an ad.

[LonK]

Not sure exactly what you're looking for. I made this quite quickly from plain Arial text with Alien Skin - Nature - Smoke.