Animating Smokes

While most of the smokes were hand-drawn frame-by-frame, the missile trail in the rocket scene was created using CC Partycle Systems II in Adobe After Effects.

Picture on the left shows the setting that I used for the smokes. The "Longevity" and "Birth/Death Size" determines how each particle decays after a period of time.

The "Opacity Map" and "Max Opacity" were set to "constant" and "100%" so that the particles don't fade out when decayed.

Lastly, the "Position" is rotoscoped to follow the missile so that it creates a smoke trail behind the missile. (the red cross on the missile in the picture below indicates the particle producer)