- played around with shapes and started shading
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Oh god, Simon you are on fire <3
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Small sub surface scattering test. I’ve started painting stuff like this but it might be wrong.
Quick check with Houdini. I think it’s clear now, that the smoke should only get brighter where it’s “thinner” and keeps being dark at the back (at least if the smoke fills a volume and is not “hollow”).
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Beautiful! Would love to see that in motion 
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thank you! i guess my 3d version will be way simpler 
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some new shapes. not sure what direction to take. 10/11 are almost a bit too smoky for me. 12 is not as interesting but resembles lightning better for me. hm…
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As usual - good job) Love your dedication to the subject) There’s an awesome artist Adam Philips , i used to take his fx course long time ago ( BiteyCastle - BCAFX Course ) and there was a section relating lightings…some of the good tricks were :
- Chromatic abberations ( like a spectral aura ) on the sides of the lighting : it kinda adds a bit of volume to it
- Mass transitions : if effect lasts more then 1 frame, you may want to control it by adding a moving highlight , so that the viewer’s eye could track some kind of motion…kind of)
Screen capture - 13d63fb76598deb340008f50854a1b32 - Gyazo
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wow, thank you for the tips! i’ll check this fx course! <3 (but i can’t find the free portion of the course, maybe it’s a bit hidden in the menus?)
Hm…you have to go to “FX Course” and then register there (https://bitey.com/dashboard/) once you’re done you’ll see those…or am i missing smth.Sorry, maybe i’ve forgotten smth…i actually found it back in 2013 or smth. , maybe it’s different nowadays.
Some good refs : https://youtu.be/C1HrcNgTDe4
for getting an account you have to pay first as far as i see it. you can ask for a remboursement of the money after the first month but i think that’s not cool
rough sketch. this time a bit less straight but also not too “smoky”. also i tried adding more different values.
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new lightning version 
The secondary lightning arc / strike is a very nice detail 
Is the color intended to be the primary color of the effect or just for separating the layers in this preview?
In image 12 and 14 I really like the contrast the dark parts introduced as well. In isolation like this I believe it enhances the effect nicely, maybe you could bring that back in?. However I see how too many brightness levels might make the effect harder to read if the effect would be placed in a scene with 20 other things going on.
thank you! yes, the red parts of the lightning will get dark areas. this is the whole idea of the effect: having a dark energy lightning strike. so the red areas will be darkened and the while smaller lightning is there to avoid that everything just gets dark.
here is a result from someone else, it shows the idea very well:
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