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

Fire Strength to 2

Smoke Strength to 0.01

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.