Trouble with superspray smoke effect

[Corporat]

I made a power plant for our animation and it seemed to be fine until i rendered it this morning. A gap in the smoke showed up randomly, and all of the frames turned out exactly the same. What's wrong here and how can I fix it?


(The gap is right above the horizon on the right)

PS: I am using 3ds max 8, but 9 is available if I need to use it.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Have you tried adjusting the location of the smoke and messed with the settings some to see if it does this regardless of where it's positioned?

Also, you said all of your frames turned out the same? Do you mean that every one of them is the same, as in no animation? You have to set it to render a range of frames, not sure if I misinterpreted what you were saying.

[Corporat]

well, i tried moving the supersprays around, and I had no luck. Then I tried moving the perspective camera around and the space was still there.

And by no change, I meant there was still a space in the smoke in the same place on every frame. It animates correctly.

[Fred Sayre]

Make your smoke stacks taller to cover up the space? Might work

[Corporat]

i've tried this, and i guess it works, im just curious why this keeps happening

oh well, thanks for helping

[3dfernando]

You should try to learn Particle flow, its much more flexible than superspray/snow or any other particle arrays that came before 3dsmax 6.

But about your question, is it emitting some particles, then stopping the emission for about two or three frames, and then starting emitting again?

If so, try the settings of "particle birth/speed", i dont really remember exactly where it is, and i don't have 3dsmax in this machine =)

The smoke material is cool indeed =D. Noise gradient? But i think power plant's smokes are heavier, and next to grey/white, not black as your image show. look this image:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/pics11/coalplant.jpg

Good luck =)

[Corporat]

no, its not that. basically, once the particles reach a certain height, they dissapear for a short while, then come back.

and i know that it is more like steam than smoke coming out of the wide smokestacks (or whatever you call them), but I'm looking to make the scene look overall dark and unclean. i've worked on it a lot after i posted the picture here, and it's really coming along. again, thanks for all of your help

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by Corporat

no, its not that. basically, once the particles reach a certain height, they dissapear for a short while, then come back.

and i know that it is more like steam than smoke coming out of the wide smokestacks (or whatever you call them), but I'm looking to make the scene look overall dark and unclean. i've worked on it a lot after i posted the picture here, and it's really coming along. again, thanks for all of your help

To make it overall dark you need to go into effects and add fog