Creating Realistic Fighter Jet Vapor Clouds and Smoke

Capturing the raw power of a fighter jet at high speed requires more than just a great model; it’s the atmospheric effects, those iconic, swirling vapor clouds, that truly sell the realism of a shot.

Creating these high-speed vapor effects can be a challenge with a fine balance between fluid dynamics and artistic control.

When a fighter jet flies at high speed, clouds or vapor form along the surface of the aircraft. These are commonly called “vapor clouds.” In this article, I will share some tips and tricks on how I create this vapor smoke using Phoenix FD and render it with V-Ray. I’ll focus on the core concepts so you can apply the same ideas in other software, especially when aiming to render realistic clouds.

Please note that this is not a step-by-step tutorial. A basic understanding of the software is recommended. However, I will explain the key settings and main concepts used in the scene.

First of all, make sure you are working in real-world units. For example, set the scene units to centimeters and import the fighter jet at its correct physical scale. The length of an F-22 should be around 1892 cm. Using accurate units ensures consistent and predictable fluid simulation results across different fighter jet models.

From the reference footage, we can see that the condensation cloud appears relatively smooth and not overly noisy. In fluid dynamics terms, this means it should have lower vorticity. Therefore, reduce the Vorticity value in the Phoenix FD simulator to 0.1.

In general, the PCG and Multipass methods work best for stable fluidity and transport, so we use those solvers. Since we are aiming for smoother smoke, increase the Multipass Steps per Frame to 2.

In this scenario, gravity is not necessary and may introduce unwanted upward motion in the smoke, so we disable it completely. The reference video shows the effect happening very quickly—the vapor forms and dissipates within seconds—so increase the Smoke Dissipation to 0.05. Because the vapor changes so rapidly, raise the Time Scale to 6.

For artistic control over how the smoke emits from the airplane, we use Vertex Paint to drive the emission. White means smoke is emitted, while black means no emission.

We apply a Vertex Paint modifier to the aircraft model, fill it with black, and then paint the areas where the smoke should emit. In the Fire/Smoke Source, we set the masking type to Texmap. 

To make the emission feel more organic, we blend the vertex color map with an animated noise texture. This results in a more dynamic and natural-looking smoke emission.

Besides masking, animate the Outgoing Velocity of the Fire/Smoke Source on and off to control the vapor cloud emission along the aircraft’s surface.

To recreate the airflow around the aircraft, we need to place several forces around it. Two Plain Forces are positioned in front of the jet to act as wind, while two Vortex Forces are placed near the wings. We know these forces are essential, but the challenge is determining their strength and range. Similar to lighting an interior scene, forces require careful tuning to achieve a realistic effect.

Here’s a handy trick: temporarily create a particle system (for example, 3ds Max’s Blizzard) and bind it to the vortex. The particles start with no initial velocity and are driven solely by the vortex, letting you clearly visualize its strength, direction, and range. Adjust the vortex parameters and watch the particle motion, then compare it with reference images of airflow around a fighter jet.

Left: Smoke without opacity modulation; Right: Smoke with opacity modulated using a VRayDistanceTex map

That’s it. I hope you find this article helpful and can apply these ideas to your next project.

We have a pack of 25 VDB Thruster animated assets if you’re interested!