Smoke effect?

[cragwolf]

How do you create a realistic-looking smoke effect in OpenGL, especially if you have no artistic skills like me? I don't even know where to start. Let's say I have soldier with a musket and he fires it, I would like to see a puff of smoke emanate from the weapon and then expand and dissipate away. Any ideas or links?

[grudzio]

How about particle system? Here is a link to OpenGL implementation:
http://www.codesampler.com/oglsrc/oglsrc_6.htm#ogl_particle_system
You will need also cg.dll and cgGL.dll files to run it (and NVIDA graphics card). And here is another simple OpenGL smoke system:
http://www.gameprogrammer.org/main.php?page=tutorials&no=47
As for gunshot smoke I think that it can be made with one textured quad
fading over time by means of alpha blending - a particle system with one particle :D
The particle textures are provided with the samples, so no need to make your own.

[NecroDOME]

I saw an impressive demo movie about smoke on the nVidia site.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce8.html (see NVIDIA Quantum Effects‚Ñ¢ Technology)

[cragwolf]

Thanks for the advice and links.