Maya fluid as a light source?

Kyle_butler

I created a flame using maya fluids. I'd like to make it behave as a light source, so that it could influence the surrounding objects.
Is there any way to achieve that?

I remember watching a while back a video from Disney animation called "Interactive Lighting of Effects Using Point Clouds in "Bolt". It showed a way of achieving exactly this, but without a R&D team to rely on, this method is quite difficult...

Eric Chadwick

Depends. Do you want it as a light source in Maya, or in a game engine? If in Maya, what renderer?

Generally, I would bake it out to a flipbook with alpha, then use that as an emissive light source.

Kyle_butler

Thanks for your answer, Chadwick. I'm using mental ray.
I didn't quite understand your workflow... could you expand on that?