3D Animation, Particles : Create smoke [Blogs experimental] [Blender]

One of the areas in which it has greatly improved version 2.5 Blender has been the particle system and physical calculations of their behavior.

In particular the introduction of functions to obtain effects such as smoke have been an interesting development in this review, facilitating obtaining results visually attractive.

To analyze the process distinguish two parts, the particle system creation and allocation of materials and visual properties.

Particle system for smoke effects

To make a simple example that covers the basic steps needed to create a short sequence in which they see smoke, we must start with a few simple elements in the scene.

Will incorporate the surfaces, for example, two cubes,

The first cube or act as domain surface (space which have the effect)

The second bucket, smaller and contained within the anterior, generator serve as smoke particles.

We assign these functions to separately select and enter the menu set found in section “Physics”

By selecting the icon “Physics” will display a set of buttons that will define the type of effect you want to assign to the currently selected surface. In this case we indicate “Smoke“

Again the set of menus and windows change to contextualize our action. If we selected the larger surface we indicate which is the domain by clicking on the button “Domain“, while if we want the generator selection smoke particles will “Flow“

By selecting “Domain”, accede to the various parameters available to characterize, from the judgment of the case will affect the final quality of the result (and the calculation time) some aspects such as the temperature of the (affect the speed of the smoke) Density (to create turbulence) etc..

We can also determine if the smoke has collisions with the boundaries of the domain, and if it is dissolved or diffused disappear after a certain time interval.

Once you know the basic methodology to create this effect we test different parameters for the scope that have.

Similar to the domain, to define that one surface is the emitter, will access new parameters to adjust their properties, as the initial velocity of the smoke (normal to the surface), its density and temperature. We leave these defaults initially to get the first animations; then we can modify to observe the influence.

Once defined the sender and domain, we generate a first viewing of the animation. First will keep the project; is necessary that the file is saved on your computer in order to generate the intermediate stages of animation.

We will use a window “Timeline” and click the button “Play” to see the result.

timeline

Render del humo

The last step in the generation of smoke is to define the visual properties: Material and textures Assigning a new material will make selecting the object and clicking on the icon “Material” (the sphere)

Define a new material for the domain.

A new version from 2.5 is the incorporation of a new type of physical base material, volume, intended for participatory media (which interact with light), as smoke, clouds, fog and other volumetric effects.

All procedural textures are supported as data sources, appearing two new textures for rendering voxels (like ours smoke simulator) and the point clouds.

The voxels (English volumetric pixel) is the cubic unit comprises a three dimensional object. It is the smallest unit of processable matrix three-dimensional and, therefore, the equivalent pixel an object 3D. (W)

We select “Volume” for the type of material of the container of smoke, namely, for domain. We will zero the density value (“Density”) in order to leave a completely clean or transparent volume, it is not the volume we want to render domain, is its content (smoke)

add a texture to the domain, accessing menu textures previously selected order. This menu is by pressing the icon with the chessboard (black and white squares)

The texture to be added must be “Voxel Data”, since it will make the content rendering voxel to voxel domain searching those containing smoke particles.

The parameter is the object we assign domain or texture, that matches the domain in which we have incorporated the effect of smoke.

Last, we have to activate the influence of the density of the contents of voxels, which affect the density render.

Many parameters are adjusted to achieve more or less realistic effects: Smoke color, Scattering effects or filtering of light passing through it, the light emission coefficients etc..

In future articles we will delve into these parameters introduce visual and physical effects such as wind, turbulence etc that will allow substantially change the results.

In the next picture we have a smoke animated gif, made with this technique. The result is physically attractive

Animated GIF humus

The animation on this small initial velocity

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