Good Fire Tutorials?

[braj]

slowtiger, please take a look at that video, they drew in After Effects and added a sawtooth distortion to the outline, ASP can do similar things with curve profiles, and I am simply looking to get a similar effect. Maybe some script for ASP that handled curve profiles differently could be made, applying variable waveforms or something, I dunno, I am not a developer so don't know how scripting could be employed here exactly, but something certainly is possible. It is also possible that some combination of the existing curve profile, noise settings, masking, etc could get a similar effect. I'm just looking to the end results and asking 'is it possible' which doesn't seem beyond the realm of reason I'm not looking for something that does it for me, but tools that empower me to do it better. Otherwise, we should just get back to pencils and flipbooks.

[neeters_guy]

Another try, except I used particles for the flame and a shape as a mask, the reverse of the previous example.



The Anime Studio file here.

In general, the effect tends to look better with more layers, adding sparks, glow and such. Besides the particle settings, you can also change up other settings to customize the flame, ie., adding noise, animating the particle shape, adding motion blur, shadows, etc.

I love it when I find a new trick. Thanks!

[braj]

Oh that looks great Neeters!

[slowtiger]

I think that last example lacks a bit of the overall upwards movement which is characteristic for flames. Only one or two elements need to have this, everything else can pop up just randomly.

[hayasidist]

... a sawtooth distortion to the outline, ASP can do similar things with curve profiles, and I am simply looking to get a similar effect. Maybe some script for ASP that handled curve profiles differently could be made, applying variable waveforms or something...

@braj: couple of limitations here on how curve profile works right now:
-- you can't apply a profile to a curve that is then to be used as a profile on another curve so that the profiles add together on the final curve.
-- the start position of the profile on the target curve is fixed

I did have some success in an experiment to get a "moving profile" on a straight line with a curve profile (repeat count 2) applied to it by:
> using animated curve exposure to keep half the line visible (key0: start 0%, end 50%; keyN start 50%, end 100%)
> translating the line such that the start of the line that has the visible part of the profile remained in the same position on the screen

I didn't take this further - e.g. onto closed shapes - yet.

[braj]

Sounds intriguing hayasidist. That was kind of what I was envisioning, a curve profile that moves and cycles, so it can be applied to a whole shape, but right now the curve profile goes in one drection over the whole shape, it would be cool if you could just define a region of a shape for the profile to affect, and allow shapes to use multiple profiles maybe. I dunno, I know what I'm thinking just can't say clearly.

What I like most about Neeter's example is the shapes for the flames, it is more stylized than the original.

[Víctor Paredes]

Ok, maybe this thread could help me too
I'm working on a videoclip and I need to animate a very specific fire. It seems it can't be resolved via particles (at least not in a "normal" way) and I have been testing a lot of different techniques like particles, frame by frame, point animation, etc. but no result is good enough.
I want a fluid fire, not "realistic", but maintaining the original intention of the shape.
Do you have any idea?

[braj]

Ok, maybe this thread could help me too
I'm working on a videoclip and I need to animate a very specific fire. It seems it can't be resolved via particles (at least not in a "normal" way) and I have been testing a lot of different techniques like particles, frame by frame, point animation, etc. but no result is good enough.
I want a fluid fire, not "realistic", but maintaining the original intention of the shape.
Do you have any idea?

Looking at that graphic, it seems if the white and red flames grew and alternated, growing from eachother, it would look really cool, is it a logo?

[Víctor Paredes]

Looking at that graphic, it seems if the white and red flames grew and alternated, growing from eachother, it would look really cool, is it a logo?

Thanks for the advice. I tried something similar and worked relatively well, but the overall flame was too different to the illustration, so I didn't continue with that.
Now I think I'm getting closer to what I'm looking for. A friend told me about a cycle where each peak of the flame translated to become the next one. It's hard to explain it in English, but here's the idea in action


It's not a logo, it's a little part of a videoclip I'm working on. Some hands will pass a torch each other. The design is from an illustrator with a very specific style, so I'm trying to get his style in moving. Sometimes it's easy, but other -like this one- it's hard to know how to make it.
I think that's the good part of this exercise, and I'm thinking about what Slowtiger posted about AFX, It's not about animating fire, it's about this specific fire.

[braj]

Selgin, I think that looks cool. I am trying to replicate similar but I don't know what I'm doing. I'm moving peaks up and down, but that doesn't seem right, but in the process I may have figured out how to do something interesting, I need to fiddle Animating points in a cycle seems like a puzzle to me. I bet it is easy but my brain is just broken.

Oh I figured it out by making a two pointed very simple flame, cool. I need to do the same with more complex flames going upward, but it looks more organic than my stylized attempts at frame by frame so far, which are way too jerky.

[dkwroot]

I'm not really an expert on effects, but I made this fire with particles. I think have some things to improve about it, but it's getting better.


Selgin did an interesting job with his fire particles, but I think he should have placed the base of the particles so that the animation is going in a vertical motion, shrinking and distorting the base as it goes UP and kind of wiggling it as it sinks back down. This gives the illusion of the fire consuming oxygen and breaking up as it sinks.

I did this one in Anime Studio using my FBF tools. I need to differentiate the flame more and put more emphasis on the fire shrinking and regenerating, but it's a start.


I'm still learning how to make decent looking flames, but the key appears to be the rhyme. Small fires tend to go through a pattern where they quickly expand out and consume all the oxygen in their immediate area. With little oxygen in their immediate area, the fire breaks up and shrinks back down which allows cold hair to move in. The fire then starts to consume the new air and expands again, which goes right back into the cycle.

When a fire expands out, you should take note of the direction the flames are moving in, because you'll want to reverse that direction when you shrink the fire.

Anyway, I bought a book called "Elemental Magic" which was written by an Animator from Disney. The book teaches concepts for all kinds of special effects from fire, ice, wind, water and obviously, magic. I'm mostly just relaying information that I learned from it to you guys.

[slowtiger]

This is just too interesting and tempting to do (instead of cleaning the room). Here's a version in a 70's graphic style. I think it delivers the "firy" quality quite well while being totally unrealistic and stylized.



File: http://slowtiger.de/examples/feuer.anme.zip
(Two elements with point animation, fade in, and a colour change. Particle layer copied two times, settings changed slightly, placed and scaled differently, top two with 80% opacity.)

(On another note: you can put sound files into a particle layer, but unfortunately it doesn't play more than one sound. Meh!)

[braj]

Yeah im actually waiting for my copy of elemental magic in the mail. I hope it comes today, its my birthday. I have similar results so far with fbf, what frame speed should fire use is by big issue right now, timing to make it look best. And drawing it well too. I eventually want a huge raging forest fire ala Bambi or Cinderella, that sort of thing. The particle effects are great especially for torches I think, where you want a character to move the flame. That seems incredibly difficult to do frame by frame if you decide to change any movement after the fact.

[hayasidist]

sorry to drag this thread back to life, but I finally found a couple of hours to put my ideas into action:


all particles with animated points - no masking (and I haven't done the logs etc around the fire ....)

[braj]

I'm finding this helpful, though it is done in flash I thought it would still be interesting, the same procedures can be used with frame by frame in ASP. It isn't just fire.