realistic cigarette smoke effects

[k_os]

using this video (www.manningmedia.net/temp/mp/biker.mpeg) as a basis, does anybody know how make a continuous loop of cigarette smoke in flash as realistic looking as this? i haven't really found much via google for tutorials, just this:

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Cigarette-Smoke-Effect/10960

but it's kind of weak.

if it can't get that realistic using flash's animation tools or actionscript, what about alpha channel'ed video? this can also work for this project (the smoke doesn't have to be produced entirely in flash). so if anybody has seen or could link me to a video of cigarette smoke with an alpha channel, that would be awesome.

or if anybody would be so kind as make some smoke in a 3d modeling program and then export out as video with alpha channel, that would be great too.

i just need some smoke. =)

[3pepe3]

Well I few months ago i was having almost the same problem cause I needed some smoke for some factory. Then i thought that asking for other people to do this for me wasn't faire.
So I start thinking how I could do that… I remembered something about 3d studio max and the system of particles so my problem was to create some kind of particle generation in flash.
I don’t like to put code when people is asking for them… is different if you ask for help but not for code… so I will explain to you what you can start doing.
Think what kind of function allows you to create a constant animation…I would say onEnterFrame or onClipEvent.
Then set some variables like antigravity, number of particules and other things optional like wind.
Then create some kind of function that is going to do the particles appear and disappear just if and only if something happends. Like reach some distance or some alpha or some size, etc.
All the particles need to have the filter blur activated cause if you don’t do that all is going to be weird

But well if you don’t what to do that you can open somekind of software to edit images and create several smoke images in png and then use the tween animation to create something similar.

Yesterday I was searching information and I found a toutorial about Clouds… have you searched over the internet something like flash.clouds or flash.smoke or anything like that?

[CyanBlue]

How about this component???

ElementalFX
http://www.horsefish.net/ElementalFX/

[k_os]

cyanblue: wow, i think that could work! thanks a ton!

[k_os]

so i bought this component, but i can't seem to get it to work right. the "smoke" present doesn't work, it just fills all the fields with "undefined". i'm not sure if i installed the component right. :(

can someone copy and paste an export of a good cigarette smoke preset?

EDIT: i'm not sure the component is even working right, cuz in the Animation panel, i'm supposed to see gradients for size, opacity, and color, but i don't see gradients. i just doubled clicked the mxp file that i got, and it brought up the macromedia extension manager and put it in for flash 8.

[k_os]

nevermind, i looked in the sample fla file that came with the component, and just copied and pasted the emitter from the sample to my other file, and all the settings were still intact. i changed a few of the settings, and it works very well. thanks again, cyanblue, for tipping me off to this great component.

you can see it in action here (http://www.manningmedia.net/Clients/MSL/MSL011/evite/index.html)

[CyanBlue]

Looking very cool... Nice... :)

[Thurston]

Yes, that does look good.

[Flash Gordon]

nice fire / smoke component! Not too bad on CPU.