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    Creating Releastic Candle Flames

    Author: 2008-07-27 07:38:08 From:

    Making believable candle flames is like a challenge for Maya rookies. In this tutorial we will walk you through the process of creating realistic looking candle flames. Here we will use multiple point lights that will simulate the candle flames. We will also play with shaders to get nice effect.

    #Final Output

    Final Output

    #Flow

    As you can see in image below we have used one directional Light for fill light and five points light for flames. Point lights provide illumination to the flames while one directional light fills the dark area of the scene.


    Light Setup
    Shaders on the walls, floor and other props are general shaders. Flame shader needed some special attention. Create a custom shader network for the flame shader. Place two 2d file texture nodes in Hypershade one for flame texture and second for flame transparency. Attach both the 2d file texture node to candle_flame.psd located in the source images folder. Rename them as flame_texture and flame_transparency. For texture node change Link to Layer set to Flame_Texture and Transparency File node change it to Alpha and Alpha to use to Alpha1.

    FileNode
    FileNode2

    Now drop a lambert node in Hypershade. Shift+Middle drag the second 2d file texture node on to the lambert node. Connection editor will pop up. Connect file node’s out color to the Color and also to the incandescence node of the lambert shader.Now drop a lambert node in Hypershade. Shift+Middle drag the second 2d file texture node on to the lambert node. Connection editor will pop up. Connect file node’s out color to the Color and also to incandescence node of the lambert shader. Similarly connect first 2d file texture out color to transparency of the lambert shader.

    Hypeshade
    Candle flame texture setup is complete. Now its time to refine the flame. create a simple plane as illustrated below and assign the flame texture we just created to it.
    Flame
    Now setup the lights as described below.

    Point Lights...
    Point Lights
    Point Lights Shadows...
    Point Light Shadows
    Directional Fill Light...
    Directional Light
    If you need glow on the candle flames go to Lambert shader and in Special Effects attribute give some glow to the shader. This was a quick walk through for creating believable candle flames in Maya.

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