Creating a "tornado" in Illusion 2.0    28 Jan 01


(Note: an Illusion project file containing the emitter used here can be found at the end of the tutorial, and CAN be loaded by the demo version of Illusion.)


When the "shadowed smoke" effect (click here) was discussed on the Illusion Mailing List, one user discovered that by adding some spin a "tornado" effect could be created (thanks to Andy Van Stelt for this tip!). Here's what I came up with.




Start with the Shadowed Smoke emitter from the previous tutorial.



Follow these steps to make it into a tornado:

1) Add it to the stage and open the properties dialog.
2) Delete the "plumes" particle type so only the "shadow" particle type is left.
3) Change the first color of the gradient to something lighter.



4) Set the particle type spin property to "+max".

This is what you should have:



Not much of a tornado, is it? Do a few more things:

5) Set the particle type spin variation to "mid" or higher.
6) Set the particle shape reference point closer to center.



This is what you should have now:



It looks more tornado-like, especially when you see it in motion. It's still not finished though -- it needs to have more motion.

7) Set the emitter Spin property to about 500%. That REALLY gets the particles spinning.
8) Turn on motion blur. (R-click in the preview window and select "Motion Blur".)

Now that's a tornado! Well, at least the start of one. You may want to tweak it a little -- increase velocity, decrease size, etc. Also, the "keep particles in order" option can be important again here. Try both the "oldest in back" and "oldest in front" options.

You can enhance this emitter by adding a dust cloud at the base of the twister, and maybe add some debris or bright flashes (when the tornado hits power lines for example). Could be very cool...




The project file:    (34 KB)
(This project file CAN be loaded by the demo version of Illusion 2.0.)



Alan Lorence    28 Jan 01