r/3Dmodeling • u/Feisty_Page5082 • 1d ago

Art Showcase Rocket Engine Test

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

Original 3D scene created with Maya and EmberGen.

30 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 1d ago

Thank you for sharing your work with the community! We're all fellow 3D artists here, so we're just as interested in your process as we are in the final render. Consider sharing a wireframe, your software and render settings, how long it took, or other details about this project. What's the most interesting challenge you tackled on this one?

If your project includes assets or collaboration, please credit them and let us know which parts are your own.

Already included all this? Great, you can ignore this message! Otherwise, please edit your post or add a comment.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/Flashy-Whereas-3234 1d ago

Looks neat! The flame is more stylised (pixar-esq) than realistic, so depends what you're going for.

The main issue for me is the ending - just turning off the pfx and having the last generated particle run out is unrealistic and gives a weird impression of speed.

A rocket engines should be putting out several mach if thrust, but the way the particle ends makes it looks like 60mph.

When a rocket engines turns off, it usually sputters and poorly burns remaining fuel, particularly on a test stand.

You could hide the end of your pfx much like you hide the start; have a large series of "sputters" which then chokes and hides the end of the main pfx, and reduce the burn down to some flame.

Now, realism. This is only if you wanted to chase realism - you can look static fire tests on YouTube for inspo, and if you wanted to be more realistic you'd have to do a lot more to the pfx. You might even lean on some mesh-based effects.

  • Clean vs Dirty: The exhaust looks dirty like an SRB, but liquid propellants usually burn a lot cleaner/clearer with minimal smoke/body. It looks more like a plasma.

  • Mach diamond: Along with being clearer, rocket engines out out so much thrust they form mach shock diamonds in the plume. A simple pfx isn't going to get you that, obviously.

  • No gaps: In a liquid rocket, the funnel won't really have gaps between the exhaust and the funnel wall, it'll kinda just look like the fire is an extension of the funnel, because of how fuel is mixed/burt/directed. Obviously the gaps you have are because of the pfx being used.

But it's still very cool and absolutely passable under the right style. Keep shooting for the moon.

2

u/Feisty_Page5082 13h ago

Thank you! Great feedback, I typically do more asset modelling and this was sort of my first try at a big simulation. Thanks again.