Hi guys I was wondering if anyone can help me in generating what I describe as "free moving plasma". I would love to know how to create 2D or 3D animations involving these, perhaps the is a more correct term to describe the effect. I have a few images that resemble to sort of effect im wanting to do. Thanks Guys :-) EDIT: Sorry, I should have said also that I have been searching and experimenting myself but I still cant get the desired effect :-) [Edited by - Genesiiis on April 7, 2010 4:17:44 AM]

You're talking about Particles, those effects are basic ones that particles can create. For the first images of the purple trails, it's most likely created with a rectangular object with a particle trail or a ghost effect where it takes the source object and trails it behind the source object and then blends them together to give that effect. The second one is just a Sphere with particles emitting from it, (the sphere is the source) then they're blended and effected by the materials, keep in mind you don't have to accomplish an effect with just 1 particle property emitting from the source, you can have multiple ones which could create inner and outer effects of the trail in the last two with the Knight emitting a blue particle stream.

With particles you can also use simple planes with textures or images on them that have translucency to them which could give you something like a Smoke effect and you can mix the two particles and planes together to get different effects. There's also a system called Fluids, which is really interesting.

If you're looking to get into these effects, I would check out Houdini definately, if that's not your cup of tea then Maya or 3dsmax. XSI also has support for this as well as Cinema4D.

if you need anymore help just message me at contact@soganatsustudios.com