As you can see, I’ve been playing with fire. I do not mess with fire in real life, never have. This type is completely safe, though!

After Blender 2.71 came out, I decided to try the new fire and smoke features. I put my fireplace on hold for this very reason. Now that it’s out, I’m going to work on the mansion and room at the same time.

I spent way too much time on these fire simulations, but I wanted it to look right. I also wanted it to be accurate. I educated myself on the characteristics of fire – the color range (blackbody radiation), min/max temperature for wood fire, types of firewood, how a flame reacts during its lifetime. I also changed many of the settings in the simulation to mimic the behavior of wood burning, the way the fire coats the log.

This image shows my progression from the top left to the bottom right. Things got a little crazy halfway, as you can see. I had to tone down the blaze!

Now that I have the look and behavior of the fire down, I’ll go back later to improve the fire logs, the way they glow during a fire, and generally place the scene a bit better. These tests just have the walls in place without the accessories I modeled previously.

I would love to see this animated, but with the long render times, I need to move on. As Blender continues to improve and become faster, I’m sure I’ll be able to watch this fire become animated in the future.

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