Fire Tutorial

Learning how to create fire on 3DS Max was an exciting idea for me. I think it would really liven up the animation and make it more interesting.

To make it I used the Super Spray tool in the Particle Systems.

Making the fire was very similar to creating the smoke in a previous post. I changed the spread and the particles to a spread.

Under Particle Generation I changed the particle qunatity to 200 particles. This contains how many particles are shown in the fire. Also here I could change the speed of the fire. I could also change the variation which varies up what way the fire spins.

I changed the fire in similar ways as I did the smoke. I just made the fire shorter and faster with a larger variation. This creates the effect of fire. I also changed the rotation and collision settings. I tweaked with them until I was pleased with its look.

I then added a material. I added a noise map in the diffuse box. Here I changed the colours from greys to a yellow and a red. This would create the fire image. I also changed the noise to fractual. This changes the way the fire looks and makes it more realistic.

I then added a gradient to the opacity box. Here I changed the noise threshold  to 0.5 to make the colours slightly more separate.

I also changed the noise amount and size and played around until I was happy.

I made sure I checked the 'face map' box at the parent window. This means the colour will effectively represent itself in the fire.

I never thought of creating fire in 3DS Max and I now think its great. It will really help the animation come alive.