Tutorial 04: Burning Teapot
In this tutorial you will learn how to add light sources to your simulations, animate collision objects and manipulate the collisions to meet your approval.
In Maya, select File - >Open Scene, and from your [MAYA]/FumeFX/Tutorials folder, select the file Tut_04_start.ma.
In this scene we have a teapot and an animated lid that comes down to collide with smoke and fire that will be pouring out from the source inside of the teapot.
To get started, we'll quickly go through the standard setup tasks that should be familiar to you.
From the Outliner, select fumeFX1 node and Sphere01. From the FumeFX menu select Object Source option.
Open the FumeFX attribute editor and set the Default Path for the simulation. If you've followed our suggestion, simply create a new sub - folder called Tut04 under the FumeFXSimData folder.
Now you need to set up the simulation parameters.
Within the General Parameters rollout, change the Spacing value to 0.4 to provide a nice, dense volume of voxels to simulate with.
Under the Simulation - >General rollout, set the Quality value to 6, Maximum Iterations to 300.
Under the System rollout, set Vorticity to 1.0, and under Temperature rollout set Temperature Buoyancy to 4.0.
Now go to the Fuel rollout and set the following parameters:
Ignition Temperature to 0.0
Burn Rate to 20.0
Burn Rate Variation to 0.2.
After those are set, open on the Rendering Settings rollout.
Go to the Fire rollout, and open Fire Color Tab rollout.
Change the Fire Gradient colors to roughly match the image below. This will give fire a nice warm color.
Move further down to the Smoke rollout and change the Opacity spinner value to 5.0. Enable Cast Shadows and Receive Shadows.
With many of the parameters set for the fire and smoke, it's time to move onto lighting. Lights can be added directly into the FumeFX simulation in order to have them affect the coloration and illumination of the smoke within the final rendered output
Create an point light and place it at your own convenience. Enable Use Ray Trace Shadows. We'll use this light to illuminate the smoke and fire (and the teapot) in the simulation.
Select FumeFX node and open FumeFX Relationship editor and select the light you have just created.
Inside the FumeFX attribute editor select the Illumination - >Illumination Map rollout and make sure that Illumination Map checkbox is enabled.
Scroll down to the Multiple Scattering rollout and enable Multiple Scattering checkbox so we can manipulate how the lighting will spread into the smoke.
Next, change the Multiple Scattering parameters as follows:
Max Depth to 5
Falloff to 4.0
Finally, it's time to add deflector objects to the FumeFX simulation system.
In the Outliner, select Teapot01 and top1 and fyneFX1 and from the FumeFX menu select Attach - >Attach Geometry to FumeFX Node as Collision.
You can open FumeFX Relationship Editor and see that Teapot01 and top1 are added as collision geometry.
Select top1_ collision and change Type to Solid. Do the same for Teapot01_collision.
Select the Sphere01_source and within the Temperature rollout, change the Amount value to 200.0. Under Velocity rollout, set Normal to 0.0.
Open the FumeFX Preview Window so that you can monitor the simulation.
Click on the Start Simulation button within the FumeFX Attribute Editor.
You can see that smoke is being deflected by the teapot top, while some is trapped beneath.
Once the simulation is complete, open FumeFX attribute editor and scroll down to Rendering Settings - >General Parameters. Enable Use Maya volume Sampling and set Samples Multiplier to 100. Set mental ray for renderer and render the animation.
As you can see in this image (frame 80), as the teapot lid gets close to the fire and smoke, it will wrap itself around the object and not penetrate it.
Tutorial 05: Wavelet Turbulence
In this tutorial you will learn how to add more detail to simulations using Wavelet Turbulence feature.
In Maya, select File - >Open Scene, and from your [MAYA]/FumeFX/Tutorials folder, select the file Tut_05_start.ma.
This tutorial essentially begins where Tutorial 4 has finished.
You might have noticed that Tutorial 4 could have benefited from more detail, especially in close up shots. This could be done by decreasing Grid Spacing parameter to value of 0.2 or even 0.1, which would create a simulation with many more voxels. However, reducing Grid Spacing has great impact on memory requirements and simulation time, so we'll try another approach called Wavelet Turbulence. Thanks to this method, it is possible to create a detailed version of a simulation based on an existing, low detail simulation quickly and efficiently.
Because Wavelet Turbulence uses its own caches for output, make sure that inside the FumeFX Preferences, Auto Synchronize Paths is enabled.
On the FumeFX Output rollout, change the Default Path so that it is valid on your machine. Since we have Auto Synchronize enabled, Wavelet Turbulence's Output path will be changed automatically.
Under the General Parameters we will leave the Spacing to 0.4.
Select the Simulation - >Extra Detail rollout and scroll down to the Extra Detail rollout and change Mode to Wavelet Turbulence.
You will notice that Export Velocity (Output rollout) has been automatically grayed out and that user cannot affect it. This is because the velocity channel is essential for Wavelet Turbulence computation and it will always be saved with wavelet caches.
By using the Extra Detail option, Default simulation will pre - compute all the data required for Wavelet Simulation Step.
TIP: If you are starting a scene from the scratch and you have Wavelet Turbulence on your mind to enhance a simulation, you will need to select this option only when you're satisfied with how your low detail simulation looks. This option adds to overall simulation time, so there is no need to have this option selected unless your next step is to create a Wavelet Turbulence simulation.
Open a Preview Window and click the Simulate button.
When the simulation is complete, open the Wavelet Turbulence rollout and set Grid Detail Scale to 2.0. This will create a final grid that is equal to Grid Spacing of 0.2 ( Grid Spacing/Grid Detail Scale - > 0.4/2.0 = 0.2).
Under the same rollout, enable the Fire and Smoke checkboxes and change Fire Strength to 4.0 and Smoke Strength to 4.0. This will create more pronounced Wavelet detail. We do not want velocity channel to be saved into the WT file, so enable Exclude Velocity Channel checkbox.
Now, you need to change Sim. Mode to Wavelet so that you can create the extra detail in another simulation pass
You will notice that Start and Continue buttons in the FumeFX UI change with the Sim. Mode change.
Before clicking on the Simulation Start button, make sure that Cache is set to Default.
Click on Start Wavelet Simulation button and wait until simulation is done.
To be able to view what the Wavelet Simulation has computed, you now need to change input cache. To do that, you need to select Wavelet from the Cache dropdown list.
Now, if you render both animations, you will notice that Wavelet simulation kept the same motion from the Default caches, but has added more detail.
Just as a summary, in order to create additional detail in a low resolution simulation, you need to do the following:
First, create a lower detail simulation using a Default cache.
When you get motion that you like, within the Simulation rollout go to the Extra Detail rollout and change the Mode to Wavelet Turbulence - and run another Default simulation to pre - compute the data required.
Next, change the Sim. Mode option to Wavelet, change parameters within the Wavelet Turbulence rollout and then run your Wavelet Turbulence simulation.
Finally, to see and render the results, switch to the Wavelet Cache in the FumeFX Attribute Editor.