Smoketrail

A spherical map of the sky (from Dosch Design) is mapped using Trapcode Horizon to the background in this comp. Trapcode Particular was used for the smoketrail.

Download AE 7.0 AEP - smoketrail.aep

This example is covered in the Horizon tutorial at around time 8:30

Trapcode Horizon and Particular. Some pretty advanced expressions to guide the smoketrail and the trailing camera. Note that since the camera is moving quite a lot, the spherical map has to depict something at infinite distance for it to look right. Two different cameras are used, one that follows the smoketrail in flight:

And another camera that stays on the ground simulating a hand-held view of the smoketrail. Note that this is the exact same animation - it is the same comp - but with second camera:

Smoke Trails Tutorial by Andrew Kramer

Awesome tutorial by Andrew Kramer that shows how to create realistic smoke trails using Trapcode Particular: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/smoke_trails/