TUP-RnD: Helicopter Shot Down

This is my second attempt at RnD for this effect which will feature in my upcoming VFX Seqence The UFO Project (TUP).

My Method:

First I created the basic animation of the helicopter (which looks very fake I know!!) then I used Thinking Particles inside of 3DS Max to simulate the Missile hitting the Helicopter and the destruction that would occur. It took several simulation attempts to get the breaking look good.

I then used Particle Flow to set-up the Explosions one emitter for the initial  fireball and another to create the smoke trails that you see a lot in air-burst explosions. For the Trails I used Spawn as you can see below in the screen-shots. The Fume Sim took a long time to sim and render due to the size of the grid but it was worth it in the end! Also the Sparks were simulated in Pflow using a very simple set-up.

I rendered in V-Ray and Comp'd in After Effects. The Background plate is Live Action so it took some work matching the elements in correctly.

Here's a little clip showing the elements of the shot:

And

The Final Shot:

As Always, Thanks For Looking. More TUP RnD and info to come!