Preview

1. Creating Fluid Dynamics Container

Step 1

Open Maya.

Step 2

Create a cylinder in the perspective view port. 

Step 3

Press F11 key to jump in the face selection mode. Select all faces of the cylinder except the top faces and delete them.

Step 4

Rename the object as Emitter and go to Edit > Delete > History to delete history.

Step 5

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 6

Go to fluidShape1 attribute and set the value of Base Resolution to 50. You can change this value to 150 just before rendering for the final output. 

Change the values of Temperature and Fuel to Dynamic Grid.

Step 7

Select the container followed by the emitter object and then go to Fluid Effects > Add / Edit Contents > Emit from Object.

Step 8

Press the Play button and you will see smoke emission from the emitter object as shown in the following image.

Step 9

Go to fluidShape1 attribute and under Display rollout, set the Boundary Draw option to Bounding box.

Step 10

Go to Container Properties and set the options of Boundary X to None, Boundary Y to –Y Side and Boundary Z to None. Set the values of the grid as shown in the following image.

Step 11

Go to Auto Resize to turn on Auto Resize option and turn off Resize Closed Boundaries and Resize in Substeps options. Set the values of Auto Resize Threshold to 0.002 and Auto Resize Margin to 4.

Step 12`

Go to Dynamic Simulation roll out and set the values of Damp to 0.025, High Detail Solve to All Grids, Solver Quality to 50 and Simulation Rate Scale to 1.300.

Step 13

Go to fluidShape1 > Content Details > Density and set the values of Buoyancy to 10 and Dissipation to 0.4. Go to Velocity and set the values of Swirl to 25 and Noise to 0.250.

Step 14

Go to Temperature and set the values of Buoyancy to 8.5, Dissipation to 0.1, Diffusion to 2 and Turbulence to 6.

Step 15

Go to Fuel and set the values of Fuel Scale to 2.5, Ignition Temperature to 0.1, Maximum Temperature to 1 and Heat Released to 0.5.

Step 16

Go to Shading > Color and click on Selected Color option. Set the color to bit dark. It changes the color of the smoke in the view port.

Step 17

Set the Incandescence color as shown in the following image.

Step 18

Set the Input Bias value to 0.7. Play with this value to control the fire and smoke ratio. 

Step 19

Go to Opacity and click on the Graph button. Add the opacity values in the graph as shown in the following image. Set the value of Input Bias to 0.300.

Step 20

Go to Shading Quality and set the value of Render Interpolator to Smooth.

Step 21

Go to Lighting roll out and turn on Self Shadow option and change the value of Shadow Quality of 1. Set the Ambient Brightness value to 0.2.

Step 22

Go to Dynamic Simulation > Temperature roll out and set the value of Temperature Scale to 5. You will notice the sub-surface-scattering effect in the smoke as shown in the following image.

2. Adding Lights and Wind

Step 1

Create a directional light in the scene. Turn on Use Ray Trace Shadow option.

Step 2

With the fluid container selected, go to Fields > Air and draw an icon of air field in the view port.

Step 3

With the air field selected, go to Channel Box / Layer Editor and set the Direction X to -1 and Magnitude to 100.

Step 4

Hit the Render button and you will see the rendered frame as shown in the following image.

3. Render Settings

Step 1

Open Render Settings window. Change the rendering engine to Mental Ray.

Step 2

Open Anti- aliasing Quality roll out and change the Quality to Production quality.

Step 3

Hit the Render button to render the frames. You will see the rendered frames as shown in the following image.

Conclusion

In the next part of the tutorial, I'll show you how to create flame thrower effect using fluid dynamics in Maya.