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Share via E-mailIn this tutorial you will learn:
- How to create fire and smoke using the new smoke simulator
- A simple lighting trick that will vastly improve the look of your fire
- The correct material settings for fire
- How to make your flames emit burning embers
- An easy heat distortion trick that adds nothing to your rendertimes
Previously, creating fire in Blender was a chore. We were forced to use the outdated particle system combined with the clumsy halo renderer. We cringed as we hit F12 and watched the equivalent of a mustard stain materialize on screen.
Those days are over.
The new smoke simulator can not only create realistic smoke, but a gorgeous fire.
I’ve been working extensively with the smoke simulator over the past few months to find out the best method for creating fire. It’s been a long road but I believe I’ve finally got the formula right.
Last week, I launched an Introduction to Smoke Simulation that covered an in-depth approach to realistic smoke physics.
This week it’s all about fire… and it’s completely free.
What you will get from this tutorial is essentially the 3 months worth of experimenting, testing and adjusting, it took me to create the best looking fire possible.
Here’s a sneak peak at what’s inside:
Make sure that you have both saved your blender file and baked it. The baking process will cache the settings to enable a quicker smoke output (with a high resolution setting). Click Alt-A. When the smoke is at its longest reach, hit the F12 key and let it render. As you know, you won’t see fire in the actual timelined Alt-A view, but only when you render the during the timelined view.
Great tutorial Andrew
Wonderful tutorial, it gave me the inspiration to do this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickblender/5481075119/
I actually made this scene with a friend for the first page of a scout camp “user’s manual”
Please leave comments and/or critiques
Thank you and bye
I don’t get this tutorial working. I use version 2.56.0. I have redone it 4-5 times. I can’t now get the fire to show up even thou I have done everything.
I would like to see every little step is showed in the tutorials. Is different layers used? Do we have to use it to get it working?
In tuturial I shall press ctrl+Left Arrow to get into the Composing Editor. When I do that I dont have any items there …
Also, I would like to see the tutorials load Factory settings before starting the tutorials. So all starts with same base and get same end result.
Btw, where can I download the .blender file that Andrew have created in this tutorial, so I can check what I have done wrong?
Otherwise I really like the help we get from Andrew.
PS: I am a newbie on Blender.
cool,quitecool I found that ‘smoke high resolution’ gave me some 3D view problems (turning the domain solid black) so I used it without. in my situation I found that fiddling with the color ramp helped a ton. I made the ramp thingies much farther apart and make them yellowish. I also turned brightness and contrast down to get some nice results. before that it looked a little like a bunch of miniature laser explosions.
also, i found that (after many failing attempts) the Voxel Data texture sometimes acts weird. it didn’t have all the same options if I didn’t switch anything. :\
Excellent tutorial!
here is my result:
http://wp.me/p1qI8f-1j
ok, I tried it again and this time it looked great! unfortunately, I’m not yet sure how to move a blender image or animation onto any other software, could be a useful tutorial.
forgot to mention that the time I got it to work, smoke high resolution didn’t act weird.
I’m new to Blender and i’m unable to see anything with this tutorial. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Blender 2.56
Everytime I close blender after baking and saving the smoke and I re-open it, I get that message
”High resolution smoke cache not available due to pointcache update. Please reset the simulation.”
And after that, when i try to render a frame or animation i get only a black spot where the smoke should be.
Thanks
Do you know if it is possible to create a very fast flame like a flame torche .
Thanks
MH
Here’s my go! Feedback people!
http://jeremydeighan.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/creating-realistic-fire/
Jeremy Deighan
hey andrew great tutorial but i’m having problems moving it into my full scene after making it, whenever i do the smoke disappears and all that is left (sometimes) is a thin layer of white smoke and no fire.
thanks for your help
Whats Wrong with your Lip?
I was watching a movie recently which had some fire in it and I thought to myself, ‘hey I know how to make that in blender,’ but it turned out that it was a completely different technique from this! the next day I tried it and it worked really well. some differences from this I will list below.
1. in the domain settings, I checked ‘dissolve’ and set the time value to 3.
2. in the textures I removed the smoke texture and checked ‘density’ in the fire texture influence.
3. the actual smoke (which was missing) I made with halos which, with the right materials (alpha to .01 and hardness to 0), it actually looked decent.
anyway, just thought I’d put that up for any curious people with unreliable compositers.
sorry I mean actually looked decent
I made fire without the smoke simulator and just nodes and particles, and I personally think it was quite a success, but this was good too.
I tried this in 2.59 and in the step before the Compositor all I am getting is pinkish smoke. Does the fire need its own particle system?
If i do this, there is too much smoke (i do all the exact steps like in the e-book), and then the Fire looks pretty ugly and there is too much smoke for the Fire -.-
same problem.
For some reason my particles don’t go straight up even though I followed the particle settings exactly. Any help?
NVM .8 Brownian is too high. I’ve setting on .2 in 2.60a
NVM .8 Brownian is too high. I’ve setting on .2 in 2.60a
hi give me blender file link
I’m using the e-book. Also using Blender 2.61. Followed everything to the letter only to see (after a painfully long baking process) that no smoke showed. I don’t know what I did wrong. I’ve done this several times, still can’t see any smoke after baking. It’s really getting frustrating. :’(
Hi Andrew,
Great tutorial. I have one question; Have been able to make this work in Blender 2.61 Cycles?
For me the Domain object is fully opaque in rendered view & the materials have no volumetric options that I can find.
Please help.
for some reason, I can’t download it