Animating polygons to act like fire? [maya]

RealityFix

Similar to something like this:



I'm presuming it has something to do with the particle effects and using clusters? I'm not really sure how to go about making this type of look in maya as well as animating it to behave like actual fire.

The above image was apparently done in C4D but I don't really have the luxury of doing that

Any help is appreciated! I tried googling around but I don't think I googled the right words or something...

.Wiki

I´m not a maya user but this is the way i would do it in softimage...

1.

Create a particle System for the main fire (ignore the small sparks first). Set up something like a vortex and let the particles die randomly after a specific time.

2.

Create a blobmesh/particle mesh out of it which will look really ugly .

3.

Use the polygon reduction to create a simple lowpoly mesh with a low resolution.

4.

For the sparks, just repeat the steps 1-3 with other settings. You could also try to overlay different particle systems and create multiple meshes to create a more intense fire.

[Deleted User]

I´m not a Maya user but this is the way i would do it in Houdini...

- simulate fire
- convert it from volume to polygons
- use poly reduce node

RealityFix

Hmmm okay, makes sense and as for the material I'll probably use some sort of gradient colour on it I suppose. I didn't know Maya could convert particles into meshes, I know of other programs that can do it but I haven't really had the time to really look at the particle settings in maya.

Thanks for the tips, I'll be sure to do some googling on this process in maya now!

antweiler

If you like it quick and dirty: Try out the fire PaintFX brushes, they are animated and you can convert them to polygons. You will quickly see, if they are helpful for you, before you attempt Fluids, and particle remeshing...

Demno

I don't think Maya can convert volumes or particles to polys. I'd keep it a lot more lowtech and hand animate it. I've made effects like this in the past by scaling and rotating meshes with fresnel to make them blend. If you rotate an "upside down torando shape" and fresnel the edges it will look like a fire lick whpping back and forth.

.Wiki

Demno wrote: »

I don't think Maya can convert volumes or particles to polys..

Sure you can, otherwise you couldn´t create simple fluids without third party software http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2010help/files/WS1a9193826455f5ff5cf1d02511b1d000978-4cf7.htm

Demno

Cool! Damn, I've been away from Maya for too long it seems :P