The Path Traced renders required a high sample and bounces count to ensure the rays penetrated through the entire exhaust plume/dust cloud

This shot involved two separate VDB sequences for the rocket exhaust and dust cloud.

An early test render to look-dev the exhaust plume

Liftoff simulation (2x slow motion). Simulating the look of the supersonic engine exhaust was one of the most challenging effects I've worked on. I found that rendering the VDBs at 96fps and rendering in Unreal at 24fps gave the best results.