The B-A-Rama pieces are a precast resin piece. Jimmy, I've seen that diorama - very nice. That's not modeling smoke, that's "Making" smoke (just ribbin'ya )

The Monroe Perdu Diorama is smoke made with a smoke generator. The problem with this type of smoke depicting a burning object is that: a) it's white and thus doesn't look like anything 'burning' b) it 'drifts' like fog and settles unless moved by a "wind" source That aside, I've seen this diorama in person and it is really cool. Cheers, Charles

Jimmy that diorama is pretty good (the helmets thing is the standout idea), but the idea of getting some cigarette smoke or whatever while taking the picture dates at least from Paine's "How to build dioramas" back then in the mid-eighties. that's not some stuff you can expose you see, the diorama is a static unmoving and permanent work while this kind of smoke moves of course. So that's a trick, and a good one it is too, but I think it's a bit "of topic" in model making you see..

Jimmy--that is outstanding work...really impressive. DJ

I've seen some animation made with few still-photo cameras placed around smoke, you know, when few cameras placed around of something moving make pictures in the same time and then these pictures are assembled into a animation (you know - "matrix-like" ). Although it was authentic smoke shown on this animation it looked VERY unnatural - it simply was not mooving... I do agree with Jean-Bernard that these things are not possible to be animated to look real just because they are always in movement and movement is their nature. But it sure is worth trying. HERE is very good try by Paul Fernandez: Andrzej

I think this only looks good on wargame tables...

IMO, this Build-A-Rama stuff looks like dirty cotton balls. Sorry but it's just not very convincing looking smoke. Cheers jjumbo

This isnt a very good product IMO...and thats the bummer behind dio construction---trying to duplicate the kinetics of ,say terrestrial explosions or fire/smoke, with a realistic effect. An explosion is composed of millions of individual particles moving very fast,so its very difficult if not impossible to re-create in three dimensions. There are a few exceptions,like water splashes and waves,that can be extremely convincing but even then there is the impossibility of re-creating completely individual droplets of water within the effect.

Adding my 2 cts to the pile I suppose modelling smoke will eventually be like having raindrops in a dio setting. Creating an illusion of movement in what is essentially static. In raindrops one could probably create the impact of the raindrop on a puddle of water but never truly be able to show the rain drops in mid air and in some ways unless a material that is translucent but yet reflect light at different angles giving the illusion of movement, it would be very, very difficult for any smoke product it to be truly realistic when viewed by the human eyeball. It wouldn't be too bad in a photo especially if painted well but it would look to solid up close and personal. Having said that I guess the smoke product by Build-a-rama may not be too bad for wargamming though.