Cone Of Fire

[yawzer]

Hi I'm relatively new to fluids. I'm trying to make a dragon's firebreath effect but i'm not really having much success. I've checked out some of the tutorials and they've helped become a bit more familiar with all the settings but i can't figure out how to make the fluid "cone" outwards. I just get that mushroom head and then a thin trail behind it..

I've tried making a cone as a collision object to try and spread the fire out but it just flows around it like a wind tunnel effect.

and swirl kinda works but the flame gets too thin and doesn't really look like a blast of fire ..

i've seen some people suggesting particles with fluid renders on sprites, i saw the example but that one looks a little too spikey and i'm not sure if its possible to change that look..

your thoughts? i'm really kind of adrift still. 2d,3d fluid particle.. i really dont know which one is best but i havn't had any luck with any so far! =p

thanks!

[firebblade]

Hi,
That looks similar to my post ,
The thing with particles is that its kinda hard to reproduce the swirls and mushroom motion
compared to fluids on which this motion is inevitable,
What i tried to do to spread the emittion is : created a fluid container with only a cone like
velocities (which i created with curves) and then used that as a force for the fluid that was about to render,
that look to work better than any volume field (shaped as a cone) that i used .
But it might be better to just animate a growing emitter that leaves a trail and play with the texture or
to do the fluid solve and then use that as a force for particles that have a fluid material
Hope that gives more ideas to add to your animation

[yawzer]

hi yeah i just looked over your post as well,.

what did you mean by a 'cone like velocity'? so you mean you emitted from a curve that was shaped as a cone or V?

[firebblade]

yeah create curves to represent the spread you want the fluids to have and Set that as the initial state for velocity
in a duplicated fluid (and turn it static) and use the duplicated field as a force for the animated one

[yawzer]

i've never tried setting a curve as a velocity and then saving the initial state(of the fluid??) that just confuses the heck out of me still.. do you mind if i contact you?

this is what i've got so far.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUUrILIzkgw
I'm emitting from a cone and pushing it forward with a radial field. lots of swirl and turbulance to try and spread it out. The container is facing up in the hopes that bouyancy would pull it upwards and help spread the flame...

container is small, like 3x3x8, res 45x45x120
sim rate of 6.

i kinda like how it simulates but i dont know whats causing that weird blocking at the start where the emitter is.

blech its embarrassing posting this but well if i can learn to make better fire it'll be worth it..

Do i need a better texture?(so hard), i've been trying to play with container size vs resolution but am not sure if thats the right path to explore..