Understanding Particles and Dynamics in Maya—Part 15

Preview

Flame Thrower

1. Creating a Fluid Dynamics Container

Step 1

Open Maya.

Step 2

With the help of Polygon Cube, create a wall like structure in the perspective view port as shown in the following image.

Step 3

Jump in Dynamics mode. Go to Fluid Effects > Create 3D Container and draw a 3D fluid container in the view port as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Rotate the container as shown in the following image. Set the Rotate X value to -90 degree.

Step 5

Go to fluidShape1 attribute and set the value of Base Resolution to 50. You can change this value to 250 just before rendering for the final output.

Step 6

Set the values of Size to 3, 25 and 3 respectively and set the options of Boundary X to None, Boundary Y to Both Sides and Boundary Z to None.

2. Creating Emitter

Step 1

Go to Fluid Effects > Add/ Edit Contents > Emitter and draw the icon in the view port as shown in the following image.

Step 2

With fluidEmitter1 selected, set the value of Rate to 400 and Max Distance to 0.300.

Step 3

Go to Fluid Attributes rollout and set the values of Desnsity/ Voxel/ Sec to 5, Heat/ Voxel/ Sec to 5, Fuel/ Voxel/ Sec to 4 and Fluid Dropoff to 0.

3. Adding Details

Step 1

With the fluid container selected, go to Dynamic Simulation roll out and set the values of Damp to 0.025, High Detail Solve to All Grids, Substeps to 3, Solver Quality to 50 and Simulation Rate Scale to 1.300.

Step 2

Go to Auto Resize to turn on Auto Resize option and turn off Resize Closed Boundaries and Resize to Emitter options. Set the values of Auto Resize Threshold to 0.001 and Auto Resize Margin to 2.

Step 3

Go to fluidShape1 > Content Details > Density and set the values of Density Scale to 0.500, Buoyancy to 15, Dissipation to 1.5, Noise to 0.010 and Gradient Force to 25. Go to Velocity and set the values of Swirl to 5 and Noise to 0.250.

Step 4

Go to Contents Method rollout and set the values of Temperature and Fuel to Dynamic Grid.

Step 5

Go to Temperature rollout and set the values of Buoyancy to 10 and Dissipation to 2. 

Step 6

Set the values of Diffusion, Turbulence and Noise to 0.050, 5 and 0.250 respectively.

Step 7

Go to Shading rollout and change the Selected Color to black.

Step 8

Go to Fuel rollout and set the values of Reaction Speed to 0.400, Air/ Fuel Ratio to 9, Ignition Temperature to 1.5 and Light Released to 1.

Step 9

Hit the Play button and you can see how it looks like in the view port.

Step 10

Go to Color and set the color value to grey. Set the values of Color Input to Density and Input Bias to 0.350.

Step 11

Go to Incandescence and set the color value as shown in the following image. Set the value of Incandescence Input to Temperature and Input Bias to 0.750.

Step 12

Go to Opacity and set the opacity value as shown in the following image. Set the value of Input Bias to 0.300.

Step 13

Go to Shading Quality rollout and set the values of Quality to 2 and Render Interpolation to Smooth.

Step 14

Go to Lighting rollout and turn on Self Shadow option. Set the value of Ambient Brightness to 0.250 and turn off Real Lights option.

Step 15

Hit the Play button and you can see how it looks like in the view port.

Step 16

Once you are satisfied with the simulation, you can start rendering the frames as shown in the following image. 

Conclusion

You can play with the gravity and wind forces to get some more exciting result of flamethrower. Remember to increase the Base Resolution to 300-400 to get production quality. Render with Mental Ray rendering engine for production like quality.