Up In Smoke (or 'That Blasted Smoke'!)

Can you create Rocket blast and smoke using only the tools shipped with XaraXtreme and XaraXtremePro?
Show us what you can produce but this must be done only with Xtremes tools so that any future tutorials* do not discriminate, this means no third party plugins or filters may be used.

So post your results immediately, however wait until/from Sunday June 15th 2008 to post *tutorials, this gives everyone about two weeks to create some smoke and post.


One submission per member, so make it a good one ..

►Rocket supplied - you provide the blasted smoke :D

can we submit say a couple of variants as long as its just the one post, or are we strictly limited to one? :)

Good idea Steve.
Yes why not.
Let's say 2 variants [a] and [b], but one post.

thanks - see you in june :D

I have made some smoke, but wont be posting this attempt - it looks more like skin with 1st degree burns and blisters. If you ever organise a "1st degree burns and blisters" challenge, then I'm up for it.

Not much smoke at the Edge of Space ;)

...5...4...3...2...1... Lift off!

A few years ago Norm (Parahandy) gave me a serious laugh when I really need one. I know he's feeling a bit down right now and I shouldn't be doing this but I am going to post one of his picture here cause I'm really missing seeing him on the forum, so I'm hoping he's going to see this and gets a laugh back, he really deserves one right about now. So, this was drawn by Norm, and by posting it I'm just remembering some of the great times some of us had a few years ago. Thanks Norm and keep on fighting........frank

hope you like
Larry

Bill:
Very cool blue blast. I can almost hear the silence of space ;)

Frances:
I hope it made it off the ground. Nice billowing smoke too

Frank:
What can I say - the dangers of smoking are many!
Not related to the challenge, but you knew that :)

Larry:
Neat take, I like the almost 3D feel to the layered blast smoke on that one.

Great start everyone.
And Steve J - you can post your result anytime you're ready. Only your 'how-I-Did-It' tutorial/method waits till the 15th ;)

Who's next?

yes I noticed that afterwards :o:D
the creative side of me is 100% busy with the recalcigent ungulate and co at the moment - from which TG is the equivalent of looking out of the window I don't have to relax.....

Nicola

I have moved your 'Sigaret' graphic to the Stop and Post June 2008 forum as it doesn't fit this challenge.

Cheers
sledger

Flame went a bit wrong, colour wise ... though I expect you'll say it all went a bit wrong :p :D

Here goes...

Very nice Fred - Like the Avatar as well

well done guys

as promised two....:)

Great work, Steve, I must say I prefer Mr. Stephenson's version.
Saludos,
Bob.

thanks Bob - I shall pass on yet another chance to sigh about xara brushes being 'tempremental' ;)

OK - it's 15th June (here anyway :p)

And here is my quick'n'dirty method for producing the blast and smoke for this challenge.
Thanks to everyone who had a shot at it too. Every entry was great!
So, let's see your methods explained please.

Note: I have saved my .xar in Xtreme version 3.* format incase some of you don't have version 4 installed.

For what it's worth:p :

HOW TO MAKE...

when doing this sort of thing in xara expect the unexpected :D ....

That's neat Steve! :)

PS - forgot to mention:

Taking the transparency right up to 99.5 in itself restricts the kind of color hue that can be maintained - oranges show sorta yellow and the like

Using a lower transparency - even 99% can improve this, but it speeds up the brush...

thanks John - to be honest, making texture in a pixel based editor is less hassle, but that were not in the brief :D

Simple how to:

Smoke basically done with fractal cloud and plasma fills, varying transparencies and feathered edge shapes with some 'luminosity' blends. Sure wish that we could easily order/reorder objects within layers. In hindsight, I should have created each object on its own layer...Oh well! :(

It will be fun :rolleyes: to pick apart that single layer, right?