Head in the clouds

A Boeing 787-9 cuts through a cloud layer.

A Boeing 787-9 cuts through a cloud layer. This artwork was created using a beta version of the EmberGen realtime fluid simulation application.

An aircraft slices through a cloud layer.

Here an aircraft slices through a cloud layer, vortices created by the wings disturb the clouds as it passes.

Simulated vapour trails, or contrails appear in the wake of a virtual 787-9.

Simulated vapour trails, or contrails appear in the wake of a virtual 787-9. Visible trails are created when hot, humid exhaust from a jet engine mixes with the atmosphere at high altitude. At this altitude the atmosphere is of much lower vapour pressure and temperature than the exhaust gas. Vapor contained in the jet exhaust condenses and forms a cloud.

Flying through clouds in EmberGen.

About this project

While experimenting with an early beta version of the realtime fluid simulation tool EmberGen, I wanted to try out a basic simulation setup and also the final render output. The application is capable of creating fire, smoke, and explosion effects. It is optimised for fast iteration and runs on the GPU to create images that would normally take hours on a single computer.

For this project I was interested in simulating a plausable visualisation that could be affected by collision with an imported model.

Images on this page were created entirely within EmberGen, no other tools were used. For the video, DaVinci Resolve was used to convert the output image sequence into a sharable video.