#Making a plume for small rocket thrusters

3 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

shut gazelle
#

I'm working on visuals for the white plume that comes out of small RCS thrusters on rockets, trying to go for the effect in this screengrab from KSP2's trailer. What's a good way to do this in 3d? I think a particle system like hanabi would probably give me the "flowing exhaust" effect. How do I configure the materials to make the edges have this gradient of transparency though?

image.png
unborn plover
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I did something like this with hanabi (the result is not perfect, but almost good)
choose the number of keys and opacity to your taste

    let mut gradient = Gradient::new();
    gradient.add_key(0.0, Vec4::new(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0));
    gradient.add_key(0.1, Vec4::new(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.8));
    gradient.add_key(0.2, Vec4::new(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.5));
    gradient.add_key(1.0, Vec4::new(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.1));
    
    let color_modifier =  ColorOverLifetimeModifier {
        gradient: gradient,
    };
shut gazelle
#

Ah thanks! I’ll give that a try.