Tutorial 03: Cigarette Smoke

 

In this next tutorial you will learn how to use noise maps to control the look of your smoke.

 

In Cinema 4D, select File->Open, and from your /Scenes/FumeFX/ Tutorials folder, select the file Tut_03_Start.c4d.

 

 

Create a FumeFX Grid over the cigarette in the Top or Perspective viewport. Make sure the height of the FumeFX Grid volume is about 115 units.

 

Next, create a FumeFX Object Source in any viewport.

 

Re-select your FumeFX Grid and change simulation output path. As you have done in previous tutorials, go to the General tab and set your output path for the simulation to be stored. If you've followed our suggestion, simply create a new sub-folder called \Tut03 beneath the \FumeFXSimData folder.

 

Now that the path is set up, let's start setting our smoke up for our cigarette.

 

Still within the General tab, go to the Simulation Area group of controls and set the Spacing value to 0.4.

 

This will result in a denser simulation grid of voxels, and will result in a more detailed simulation. Understand this will also take up more disk space to store and longer to sim. But since we're going for realism here, this should do the trick.

 

Next set the Sensitivity spinner to 0.05.

 

Once complete, open the Simulation tab.

 

Under the Simulation group of controls enter the following values for attributes:

Quality value to 4.

Maximum Iterations to 100.

Advection Stride value to 0.3

Time Scale value to 2.

 

 

Next, go to the System group of controls and change the following spinners to values provided:

Vorticity Strength to 0.1.

X Turbulence value to 0.03. (NOTE: that this value will affect X, Y and Z turbulence values since they are currently linked)

 

 

Once these parameters are set for our smoke, we need to tell FumeFX NOT to generate any fuel, which would create fire as well. Obviously, for a cigarette, we don't want the end burning like a match or candle. We just want the smoke to be simulated and emitted from the tip.

 

Under the Temperature group, set the Temperature Buoyancy to 1.5.

 

Under the Fuel group of controls, click on the Simulate Fuel checkbox to de-select it.

 

To continue this process of turning off Fuel and Fire, go to the Rendering tab next and within the Fire group, click on the Render Fire checkbox to de-select it as well.

 

Still within the Rendering tab, under the Smoke group change the Opacity to 5.0. This will help give you more visible cigarette smoke. Set Ambient Color to mid gray (R: 160, G: 160, B: 160).

 

Once complete, the only thing that will generate within this scene is Smoke. Now you need to tweak the smoke parameters directly. This involves adding all of your sources and objects to the simulation engine.

 

While FumeFX grid is selected open Object/Sources tab in Attribute Manager. Drag Object Source item from Object Manager to Object List control inside Attribute Manager window.

 

 

To link Fire object with Object Source, select Object Source and then drag Fire object from Object Manager to Objects attribute inside Attribute Manager.

This will act as the smoke generation source.

 

 

Select Cylinder and Butt objects in Object Manager and click on Collision Object item from Tags - FumeFX Tags menu. Select FumeFX grid and open Object/Sources tab. Drag Cylinder and Butt objects from Object Manager to Object List control inside Attribute Manager.

 

 

Okay, so you have your sources now for the simulation. Let's now look at some of the advanced controls for your sources.

 

Select Object Source from Object Manager.

 

Next, go to the Fuel group of controls and click the button that says Set (next to the Type label). Choose Disabled from the pop-up list. Again, we want to turn off fuel calculations in this sim.

 

 

Next, you'll add a procedural Noise texture map as a mask for the smoke to help control the look.

 

Within the Smoke group of controls, set Type attribute to Set. Then add new material into the scene by clicking New Material in Create menu under Material Manager. While new material is selected click on right arrow button under Texture attribute inside Attribute Manager and then on Noise item. Then click on Noise button to open attributes for Noise and change Space attribute to UV (2D) and Global Scale to 200%.

 

 

Drag created material from Material Manager to Fire object inside Object Manager. This will create texture tag linked with new material and add it to Fire object. Texture tag needs to be placed in front (on the left) of existing object tag as shown in image below. Use drag'n'drop technique to move added texture tag to the left.

 

 

Now click on Object Source. Drag new material from Material Manager to Map attribute inside Smoke group.

 

 

At this point, let's go through our checklist for a smoke-only simulation:

 

FumeFX Grid placed where we want the simulation to occur? CHECK.

FumeFX Object Source created to reference our scene geometry to be used as a smoke source? CHECK.

Other scene geometry selected to be used as a collision objects in simulation? CHECK.

All Fuel and Fire creation checkboxes de-activated? CHECK.

Simulation parameters adjusted for a sample run? CHECK.

 

Now you are ready to run a test simulation.

 

Enable the GPU Viewport Display so you can monitor the output.

 

Click on the Start/Continue Simulation button within the FumeFX plugin menu.

 

If you would prefer, you can knock down the Quality value from 4 to 2, and adjust the Spacing value from 0.4 to 0.8 to help reduce the time and space required.

 

Once the simulation is complete, render the animation out to see your result.

 

 

Within the viewport, simply by scrubbing the frame slider after the simulation is complete, you should notice the smoke moving with the cigarette source and how the base of the cigarette acts as a collision object. You can see how the noise map is affecting the smoke patterns.

 

On your own, you can play with different map types to see how they affect the smoke generation. If you want, turn off the Noise map and re-simulate to see exactly how much detail the Noise map adds. Or if you prefer, try to animate the Noise map parameters over time to see how that influences the smoke generation and simulation.

 

Okay, so now you have a sense of how to add a map to your sources. Time to move on to even more complex simulations including lighting your smoke and fire effects.