also here is to make smoke and fire
Using Blender's Particle System to Create Simple Smoke and Fire
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The simplest way to think about the particle system is that any mesh object can be made to emit particles. By default, the particles are emitted from the object's vertices in an invisible ray.
You can specify the colour and transparency of the particles, the speed and direction in which they travel, and their size and range of travel. These values are particle "attributes". By combining different attributes, you can make particles look like bullets, Jedi lightsabers, smoke plumes, or the flames of a fire.
The following tutorial is not the only way you can create such effects, and expert blender users can probably do it much more efficiently and economically. It is a simple effect, intended to let you learn some of the features of basic particle animation.
Some screenshots would be helpfull for this tutorial. Add if you can
[edit]What You Need to Know before You Start
In order to complete this tutorial, you must...
Understand how the Blender 3D interface works so that you can select objects and manipulate them in 3d space.
Know how to select options and change numeric values.
Be able to create and illuminate a simple mesh with lights.
Be able to adjust the camera.
Know how to configure the render and animation settings.
[edit]Setting Up the Workspace
Start from the default blender configuration and set up your view as a 2-panel display of the main 3D view window, and a smaller panel underneath it for the buttons window.
Create a mesh of a 3-division icosphere in the center of the 3d window. This icosphere will be our first "particle emitter".
Add a couple of area lamps at very low energy (about 0.075). Arrange the lamps on either side of the icosphere.
Press the F10 key to display the render buttons window.
Set up the render options to give you a quick, low-resolution render as follows:
set OSA, SHADOW, ENV MAP, and RAY off (not highlighted)
set image size to 50%
Now press F5 and then click materials, now under the “Shaders” tab make sure halo is selected.(edit, should be tried if below does not work)
Press the F12 key to make a quick render, proving that you can see your icosphere centered in the view. If not, adjust the camera direction so that it points right at the icosphere as follows:
In the view window, press KP5 to toggle to grid view (grid showing).
In the view window, press KP1 to toggle to front view.
In the view window, click on the camera to highlight and select it.
In the buttons window, press the F9 key to display the editing buttons.
Click on the Show Limits button. The camera now has a direction line, showing where it is pointed.
Press the R (rotate) key to select the camera for rotation and rotate it with the mouse until the direction line runs through the centre of the icosphere.
Press the Enter key to confirm the new direction and exit rotation mode.
In the view window, press KP7 to toggle to top view.
Repeat the alignment described in steps 6 and 7.
Press KP0 to return to camera view mode and press F12 to repeat the quick render. The icosphere should now be dead centre in the image.
(Note - you can also use the rotate widget to point the camera, but I'll leave that for a different tutorial).
Why not do it now? See that depressed finger button right under the viewport? (don't worry it'll cheer up!) right next to it are three essential time saving buttons. Going from right to left are the Move, Rotate, and Resize widgets. These appear at the 3D pointer location and affect the currently highlighted objects. left click on a colored axis to perform the desired function solely along that axis. Usefulness = 11 out of 10
[edit]Making a Smoke Plume
Smoke is easiest to model, and learning it first will give you some insight into the particle system. Begin by making a simple particle emission that you can see in the view window as follows:
Simple Particle Emission
RMB on the icosphere to select it
In buttons window press F7 to display Obj. buttons
Click the "Physics" Tab and in the second pane labeled "particles" hit "NEW"
The Particles and Particle Motion tabs are displayed (** It is possible to split the panels so that you can see both at once. LMB on either the Particle or Particle Motion label and drag to the side. The panels will seperate. ** This is an optional step and not necessary to complete the tutorial)
Before going further, Press the F12 key to make a quick render of the current state of the object. What you should see at this point is nothing. Your icosphere appears to have vanished. This is because you have now declared all its vertices to be nothing more than particle emitters. Also, the particles have no visible attributes at this point, so there is nothing for the renderer to see.
LMB on the Particles tab (if you haven't split the panels)
Make the following two changes to the particle system:
Click on the Static button.
Click on the "Particle motion" tab.
Change the value of Norm from 0.000 to 0.100 (Hint: click once on the right arrow symbol in the box).
Notice that the view window now shows a stream of particles (You MUST be in OBJECT MODE to see particles) jetting out from every vertex in the icosphere, making it like like a star. Use MB3(MMB) to rotate the view so that you can appreciate the symmetry of the particle stream. Press KP 1 to return to front view.
Press F12 to make a quick render of the changed object. You should see something that lookes like a white explosion. Each particle is rendered as a glowing ball, but the particles are fairly large at this point, and you cannot see them as individual particles.
Use the following procedure to make the particles smaller. At this time, you will also give them a color and some transparency to make them look a little more like puffs of smoke.
Smoke Particle Material
In the buttons window, press F5 to display the shading window.
Click on the material buttons icon (red gobe) to display the material.
Click on the Add new Button
Change the name of the material to MA:smoke
The default colour is a brownish grey, which is fine for smoke, so do not adjust it at this point. However, you want to give it the following attributes:
Smoke Particle Attributes
Click on the Shaders tab to display the shaders panel.
Set the specularity (shininess) to 0.000.
Click on the Halo button. Notice that the preview sample changes to something resembling a cloud.
Set the value of Hardness to 15
Set the Halo size to 0.300
Set the value of A (Alpha) to 0.80.
The preview sample might now look as if it has vanished. However, press F12 for a quick render and you will see that the former white explosion has now become a star of smoke puffs. This pattern is still too organized and regular to look much like smoke, but you are getting there.
To model the smoke, press F7 to display the Object buttons in the buttons window again. When you first set up the smoke model, you set the particle emission as "Static". However, you want your smoke to build and to move in the final model, so the next step is to randomize the particles and make them move like drifting smoke.
First, let's look at the default animation of the smoke particles:
Click on the Static button. Notice that the star of particles vanishes, and the mesh is now drawn only as vertices - no polygons.
Ensure that the icosphere object is still selected (highlighted purple).
Pres KP0 to go to camera view.
Put the cursor In the 3D View window and press Alt-A. Notice that each vertex now emits particles in the same star pattern.
Before you proceed, take a quick look at a rendering of the animation as follows:
In the buttons window, Press F10 to display the Scene buttons.
In the Format panel, click on the PC button.
In the Format panel, choose AVI JPEG as the file format.
In the Render panel, set the image size to 25% (small, for a fast render).
In the Anim panel, set the value of End to 100, to create a 100-frame animation lasting about three seconds.
In the Output panel, set the filename to /tmp/smoketest, or any other save location that you prefer.
Press the Anim button to begin rendering.
When all 100 frames are rendered, press the Play button to review the animation.
What you should see is a cloud of smoke puffs starting from the location of the icosphere (which is invisible) and radiating outwards. it looks a little like an explosion of smoke, but is still too organized and regular to appear as smoke.
Now that you have invested some time in creating the animation, it might be worth saving the .blend file. After you have saved the file as smoke1, you can experiment with making the particles look more like smoke. Go back to the section titled:
Smoke Particle Attributes and experiment with the values of Halo Size, Hardness and Alpha. You can also go back to:
Smoke Particle Material and experiment with the color of the smoke. You do not need to create a new material, you only need to change the existing RGB values.
For example, a Halo Size of 0.900, an Alpha value of 0.100, and a hardness value of 1.0 will produce a denser, more realistic smoke. After you finish experimenting with the values, use these values and save the file again.
Randomizing the Smoke Particles
If you are modelling smoke from a fire, you want the particle system to move randomly, but to drift in a predictable direction as if moved by a breeze or simply billowing up from a source of fire.
Blender's particle interaction options provide some sophisticated ways to control particles and make them interact with the environment. However, for this tutorial you will simply specify some variables that randomize the particles and move them in the desired direction. You can learn about particle interaction later.
To set up the model, first revert to a static view of the particles, as follows:
In the buttons window, press F7 to display the object buttons.
In the Effects panel, press the Static button. Notice that the 3D view changes to the particle star.
Press KP1 to display the front view.
In the Effects panel, find the group of variables labelled "Force" [Under "physics" button and "particle motion" tab in Blender 4.1] and change them as follows:
Change the value of X to 0.200. Notice how the particles are now skewed to the right.
Change the value of Z to 0.200. Notice how the particles are now skewed upward.
In the Effects panel, change the value of Randlife to 0.200. Notice that the pattern of the particles becomes more disorganized.
In the Effects panel, change the value of Rand to 0.100. The pattern becomes even more disorganized.
Press KP0 to return to camera view.
What was formerly an organized star of particles has now become a random mass. You can now preview the animation as follows:
In the Effects panel, click on the Static button.
In the 3D view window, press Alt-A.
The cloud of particles now drifts randomly to the right. Preview the animation as follows:
In the buttons window, press F10 to display the Scene buttons.
Press the Anim button to start the animation
You should now see a much more realistic drifting cloud of smoke. However, one of the problems with it is that you can still see a pattern of particle emission from the vertices of the object. One way to make this less visible is to reduce the scale of the object, squeezing the vertices together, although that will make the source of the smoke appear very dense. Using the mesh edit decimator option to reduce the number of vertices will make it less dense, as will ramping up the Alpha value of the smoke halo.
The *BEST* way to truly randomize particle emission is to select the emitter and go into edit mode (TAB key), select ALL vertices of the emitter ("A" key), go to the Editing menu (F9), and then to the Mesh Tool Subpanel. There, press the HASH button, then leave edit mode (TAB key). You will now see particles emit in a TRULY random fashion, something that has been overlooked by nearly every other tutorial available.
There are many other ways to make the smoke look more natural, such as by animating the value of Alpha or color to make the smoke seem as if it is getting thicker. You can use several emittors to send out particles of smoke of different color and density, with different rates of emission. By animating emittors, you can create a very realistic effect - or even a moving cloud system.
However, for this tutorial, we will keep it simple, and move on to the next step of animating simple flames and sparks to mix in with the smoke.
At this point, you can save the file, and then experiment with changing the values of the particle system to see how it affects the smoke.
