Hey, Im not quite sure where to put this thread or question.

basically Im trying to make a rocket fire from a plane. Ive spent two days animating the rocket and putting the trails together etc, but it doesnt seem to be giving me the results Im looking for.

The rocket trail is seems fine but, the tail doesnt look very realistic, its straight and doesnt puff out at the end, if that makes sense. As you can see from the picture.

The rocket is being fired from an F-18 jet, its not in the picture.

Ive made the trail using Maya emitter and particles and its coloured with a ramp shader.

Doesnt anyone have any ideas how to, make the tail look a bit more realistic?

And one other question, I was trying to give my scene a more realistic look, for the lighting I have some image based lighting (thats the background) and a directional light set to .5 with raytracing, Ive also got Mntal Ray with final gather on, is there something else I can do to improve the final animation?

Thanks for any input & happy Xmas