Stylized Trails in Blender 2.8

Join me as I break down the setup of 3 different types of trails in blender 2.8. This method is art directable and flexible for many different looks. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions, Ill try to answer them best I can.

[@RIOTGEAR3D]

Very cool! Love your stuff.

[@user-tt9tr4vx1n]

Thank you for your explanation and let me know more about nodes.

[@KriGeta]

the tutorial we all waiting for!

[@HammerdownProtocol]

Brilliant. Thanks very much for this, Graham. I'll be putting this to good use, soon. Subbed.

[@yusufsemihkocak1959]

Thanks wonderful tut man

[@norby2040]

Great tutorial, @Graham!

[@charn-yinchen565]

👍 nice stuff. thanks a lot

[@PolyRidge]

you are a legend good sir. Thank you 🙏

[@adarshk3428]

Thanks for tutorial 😊

[@aloomia826]

Great ✌thanks alot👍

[@sndosc]

Thanks!!!!!

[@ROSALIEIK]

nice

[@maggiejugg6359]

thanks

[@user-uy9lb5el2f]

💪

[@trulgn]

Sorry for my ignorance. Does anyone know if this effect can be used to track a greenscreen object e.g. a green painted stick (with or without tracking markers) in a composition?

[@toonanimationstudio]

I am a total beginner in blender node please show more of the node in the smoke or a screenshot so we can follow along cause some of them are hidden

[@coconurt7153]

how do i make the line follow the path?

[@Antoinedrz]

is there a way to change these to cubes /voxels

[@jodexcreates]

I'm in 2.9, I followed the node setup as I've seen it but my line doesn't have a glowing or gradient effect. It's just a very faded solid line that I get. I think there she be a more step by step approach to this.

[@DarkFruitsAnimation]

did you forget to enable bloom

[@pitched7401]

check if your viewport shading is correct

[@lordnaps]

how do you get the sterak to attach directly to the curve? I have the curve modifier on the streak but when i turn it on my streak object is no where near on the actual line

[@GrahamWiebe]

You need to make sure the curve pivot is near the streak pivot. I generally only move the curve in edit mode to keep things easy

[@lordnaps]

@@GrahamWiebe gotcha, what do you mean by the pivot?

[@futurewjetpacks]

when i use the displace modifier, it doesn't do the wispy thing. the line just stays straight..

[@done.6191]

Same here. Somewhat this seems to be scale dependent; I was working on a large scale and the line didn't even snap to the curve. Scaled everything down and it worked better, but my line stays straight (yes, weight is painted, etc).

[@azuretooth]

Can I apply this to Bullet Trail FX?

[@lestatluchalibre]

Does it come on the trails addon ?

[@GrahamWiebe]

you should be able to use curves generated by the motion trail addon.

[@Denis9ROCKSTAR]

I'm sorry, but it seems i missed the part where you show how it's parented to the curve, to make it move along the curve?

[@MrMargaretScratcher]

Be sure to snap the streak object to the same position as the curve object and it seems to work

[@Rocketcityninja]

Hi, I am following along, I've created the plane, shaped it, subdivided it, and now I am trying to create the material you have and I cannot get the black background of my png to disappear. I have my nodes setup just like you have shown but I actually had to adjust my transparent node to black in order to get the thin line to appear the way you show (otherwise it just showed as a white line like my png)(I confirmed and made sure the png I made has a transparent background). Any ideas what I am doing wrong here? Thanks!!

[@Rocketcityninja]

I was able to figure it out. On the materials tab, under settings I needed to have blend mode set to alpha blend.

[@caggon3899]

Does this work in Cycles? thanks!

[@GrahamWiebe]

yes it does

[@NickChangArt]

Where did you find the PNG of that line?

[@ArchbardWava]

You can make it by using a Gradient Tool with a Color Ramp. It's even better this way, since you can tweak it easier than if you were using an image.

[@lestatluchalibre]

do you have the smoke trail for download ? please

[@GrahamWiebe]

Its super easy to make, I have one texture thats just a tiling smoke image. you can either make your own in photoshop / krita (I suggest you make your own for best results, and for experience) or find one online. Nothing fancy after that, just the shader and setup shown in the video.

[@misscheymarie9910]

Hi, this is amazing! Would you be interested in freelance work?

[@shash_wut]

can I get the blend file?

[@GrahamWiebe]

I generally don't give out the blend files for my tutorials. I would recommend giving it a shot and building it from scratch, I always learn a lot from building and running into extra subtlety as I go. It also gives you a nice opportunity to experiment and see what some other ideas do. Feel free to ask any questions or if you get stuck on something

[@shash_wut]

@@GrahamWiebe cool then, I'll do that. Thanks a lot!

[@monsieur9520]

Am I the only one who's absolutely struggling with this tutorial ? I don't understand anything, I really wanted to see the whole process from A to Z