In this tutorial you will learn how to create a fire animation inside Maya, and adjust the settings for your own projects. We will create the fire from scratch using Maya Dynamics and Fluids. The fire animation we will create can be rendered using both Maya software and Mental Ray.
Final Effect Preview
Step 1
Open the scene you are going to use. I created a scene with a lighter, some lights and a white background.
Step 2
Make sure the “Dynamics” menu is active, and then go to “Fluid Effects > Create 3D Container with Emitter”. Position and scale the container to match your scene.
Step 3
Select the container you just created, and then go to its attributes (make sure you are looking at the “fluidShape2” attributes).
Step 4
You are going to leave the resolution at a very low number for now. Change the following options under “Container Properties”.
Step 5
Select only the emitter and move it down with the move tool.
Step 6
Increase the number of frames. Do a playback to see how the animation of the flame is looking.
Step 7
Select the container, and under the “fluidEmitter1” attributes, change the following options:
Step 8
Go to the “fluidShape2” attributes and change the following options:
Step 9
Inside the “fluidShape2” attributes, change the following options under the “Contents Details” section:
Step 10
If you do a playback of the fire you should see the fire reaching the top of the container and creating an undesirable effect.
To fix this, you need to increase the size of the container.
Step 11
Go to “Fluid Effects > Extend Fluid” open the settings of that tool, and then change the “Extend Y by:” to ’2′ and click on “Apply and Close”.
Step 12
Now the fire has more space to move.
Step 13
Select the container, and under the “fluidShape2” attributes, change the following options:
Step 14
Scroll down to the “Shading” section and change the following options:
Step 15
Scroll down to the “Incandescence” section, and change the graph as shown on the image.
Step 16
Go to the Opacity graph and change it as shown in the image. Then modify the following options:
Step 17
If you do a playback of the fire, you should see a nice looking animation.
Step 18
If you render the scene, you should see that the fire looks good now too.
Step 19
If you want to modify the “Brightness” intensity of the fire, go to the “fluidShape2” attributes, and under the “Incandescence” section, change the “Input Bias” to a value that works for you.
Step 20
I used Mental Ray to render the fire, but you can change it to Maya by going to the “Render Settings” menu, and at the top of the window, change “Render Using” to Maya Software.
Step 21
If you render the scene it should still looks pretty great, but all of the objects in my scene disappeared (except for the fire) because they all have mental ray materials.
Step 22
Lastly, if you go to the “Attributes” of the container, you can use one of the other cool presets that Maya has built in.
Step 23
The image below was created using the “thickcloudPuff” preset.
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By Alan Monroig
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FIRSTTT!!!!
Flame starts here
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V
Great Tut… More Maya Particle stuff please!!!!
more tutorials for maya
LOVE IT! MORE MAYA AT ALL COSTS!
Def more particle stuff!
Yes more maya Tutorials are always welcome. Dynamics and cloth are hard ones to find too…
Nice tut!!! Much needed. :)
Thanks!! to everyone
yeah a maya tutorial! thanks(:
NIce tut I like it al ot
i may be wrong i dont smoke but it seems like you used the wrong kind of flame for a lighter. and doesnt most lighter fluid burn clean. its a good flame i am just not sure its the correct one.
Awesome! This is very realistic!
Very nice tutorial.
MAYA, MAYA, More Maya!
That’s one big lighter. :P
…other than that good tut ;)
When I render this it looks almost the same as it looks in maya’s viewport…
Far from as awesome as your final render, would be nice to have some tips >_>
I don’t get how it looks so good even in Maya Software, I tried that too and then quality on highest but still doesnt cut it (scene is the same as yours!).
I had a similar problem. Scene is set up the same way, but it looks pretty lame. It also would be really helpful if you could explain why we’re changing each attribute. Changing a few numbers doesn’t really say much. Explaining what each attribute does, and the reasons you would need to change based on what you’re creating would be awesome.
Thanks for the feedback, I will try to explain each attribute in my next tutorials!
Maybe the problem is the resolution of your fluid, and not any of the render settings.
Tip: When the quality of your projects is low, first try to adjust the settings in your scene and at the end adjust render settings.
so help full and so easy
It’s a COOL tutorial which help you to create FIRE ;-)hehehe…….
It’s a COOL tutorial which help you to create FIRE ;-)hehehe
Almost like the turbulance flame example in maya. I have one single big problem, I cannot scale the container by any means and get the same look. I need 10x10x10 bigger container for my scene. Cannot find a straight answer anywhere. I’m starting to think that scaling all the scene with a lot of animation in it would be easier.
Hi, you need to scale the container proportionally with the resolution of the container, if you scale the container 10 times you need to scale the resolution of the container 10 times too. Check step 4.
your steps are very basic, I hate when people attempt to do tutorials and skip or hide steps. What the point of doing the tutorial if you just give bits and pieces of your technique. What is the go with your render layers?? Also lighting setup is also important when trying to create fire type effects. You didn’t show your light setup. In future try to better prepare your tutorials if you decide to do any if the future, users come to learn and pick techniques, not half done doggy tips.
Este tutorial es una mierda!, siguiendo los pasos como se describe, se obtiene algo que ni se acerca a la imagen que muestra este guevon en su pecueco tutorial. Mejor no hagas mas basura como esta.
taco?
Crappy tutorial… I followed it exactly and it doesn’t look at all like the render. I agree with the people above that it probably has a lot to do with pre-existing scene lighting which is completely ignored. Another awesome tutorial on CG Tuts! I’m losing faith in this site quickly. The pretty graphics and layout don’t make up for morons approving tutorials that know nothing about 3D, let alone testing them out to see if they actually work.
However, if nothing else, you’ve shown a little about the Fluids and Emitters. Thanks for that I guess.
@Ross:
Totally uncalled for, and completely false. I have over 6 years of experience with 3ds Max, 3 with Maya and ZBrush, and have been working as a professional Game artist on AAA titles (Bioshock 2 being the most recent) for almost 4 years.
It is logistically impossible for one person (me) to physically execute every tutorial that is submitted, while still supplying a steady stream of new content every day. The best I can do is look at the final effect, and review the steps to make sure they are explained properly and not confusing. This is FREE content after all.
If you think you can do better work, then I invite you to enlighten the community and submit a tutorial exhibiting your amazing skills. Otherwise, keep it to yourself. It’s negative and immature comments like this that bring the community down for everyone else, and it won’t be tolerated. The next comment I see like this gets deleted.
Doesn’t work. I followed all the steps and ended up with a little glowing block. You missed something somewhere. I noticed some of the settings in your screen shots were not highlighted, but had been changed from my default settings.
yeah, there is something wrong here.. I followed each step using Maya 2009 and when I got to the fuel step, I could not edit any values.. and I ended up with blocky looking clouds of smoke, with weird circular opacity which is colored like the ramp used and all grainy in the centre of each smoke cloud..
how about a tutorial about using these techniques to create the smoke monster from LOST ?
the preset puffyclouds is pretty close already.. how do I make the smokey more black and give it flashes of light and electricity ?
Well i followed exactly like it said and all i get is some faded crappy looking thing when i render it doesnt even look rendered.
Im with Tom… dodge flame for a lighter… and smoke? really?
It takes a lot of effort for me to follow a tutorial from beginning to end, but I did. My reward for the time I put into this… lame, barely visible puffs of smoke, nothing like what is shown in this Tut. I was hoping for some motivating results…(sigh) Guess I’ll look elsewhere…
Wow. Harsh crowd. Thanks for the Free Tutorial. It gives me a beginning that I can work with, and make it better.
Cheers.
- Jimbo
I followed the tutorial and it ended up looking like a black flame, with a little tweaking I have made it look very simular to the one in the tutorial.
Thanks lots :)
Please make more maya MODELING tutorials because there are hardly any on this site and I want to become a modeler.
Thx for the tutorial, man. helped me to burn some thin branches in my project, But you forgot to tell us to raise the resulution in the end. This is why everyone having this problems when rendering. Another TIP for all – Make sure you haven’t forgot to switch the drop off shape to sphere :( Did happen to me. and another thing the STEP 22 is just a suggestion not a part of the tutorial.
i guess one way to light setup it is somthing like –
^
P – > < – P
^ P\S
– Fire :)
P – point light (white) with great intensity, light radius and decay.
S – spot light pointed upuwards yellow/orange/white
The white background is important too. i couldn’t get your result but i’ve learned alot, so thx again.
This is pretty ace!
Thanks for the tutorial, anyway im goin to use either of this or Dynamics > Effects > Create Fire.
so nice tutorial……….
This is great !!! it nice to learn fluids from small things like this!!!
thankxx
WOW, this sucked. I followed it to the letter and ended up with this: http://frustratedrocka.deviantart.com/art/DOES-ANYONE-HAVE-A-GOOD-FIRE-TUTORIAL-288838350
Kindly make sure your tutorial actually, I don’t know, FUNCTIONS before putting it up. Now, not only do I have crappy fire, but I don’t know what I need to change in order to make it less crappy.
My hopes were so high, too… I’ve spent about 6 hours trying to find a tutorial for this, and this was the only one that looked to have semi-decent output. Ah well, back to square 1.
To all the people complaining about this tutorial: YOU SUCK!
If you had any experience, you’d know it takes time and patience to master any 3d software. Trial and error is the key. I just started two days ago with fluids and this tutorial is a great starting point to get an overview for the procedure. Just use the playback button once in a while and try to figure out what happens when you change a value instead of being bleating sheep.
Great tutorial. Thanks!