Flames in Carrara | Castle Dungeon

I purchased the Castle Dungeon Model which includes flames. I have installed it for Carrara and it mostly loads properly. My question is how do I A) get the flames to glow? B) get the flames to cast light? There is an included Pose that is called "Flame-on" but I am not sure how to apply it.

Even if it's not this model specifically can someone point in the right direction to get flames to work in Carrara 8.5 Pro?

Thank you! 

Comments

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,026
    edited December 2019

    Whoah, I actually do own that product.  Don't think I've used it yet. What I am about to suggest is based on taking a quick look at my list of installed files looking at DIM's show installed files option and then spending a little time in the vertex modeler room examining how David Brinnen and Forbidden Whispers put it together.  Can't guarantee that I will be talking about the same flames, etc.

     

    Before I go into detail, check the pose folders in the runtime library for a mat pose to turn on and off the flames.  Frankly, even if it works, it will be optimized for Poser or Daz Studio, and you would probably want to edit it anyway.  Alternatively, you might want to just hide the flames and insert a fire primitive from the top Carrara menu and place it in the lamps.

     

    What I did.

    1) Because I had installed with DIM, I found my installation record in DIM, right clicked on Castle Dungeon PS (the version I installed) and found the option for show installed files from the resultng list.  I saw that the product came as a Poser figure CR2 file in the runime / libraries / character / castle dungeon folder.  There was also a list of shader files in the runtime textures Forbidden Whispers area.  I also noticed a Poser pose in the pose library to turn the flames on and off.  Depending upon whether you installd the Daz Studio (DS) version or the Poser (PS) version,and whether you used DIM, your files may be in a different place.

    2)  I started a new Carrara scene and dragged the castle dungeon figure from its library location into my scene.  After it loaded, I selected the "model" level and entered the vertex modeler. There is a wall around the scene, so I selected the outer wall and used the "hide selection" option from the view menu so I could see inside.  I used the selection menu to select by shading domain and selected the lamp flames.  That confirmed the name of the shader domain for the lamp lames.

    3)  With the lamp flames selected, I went into the texture room and adjusted the shader for the flames.  For this real quicky, I copied the map from the color channel to the glow channel.

    See - nothing in glow channel.

    here ive copied the color channel and pasted to the glow channel.

    4)  I inserted a bulb and did a test render.

    5) You might want to place more focued bulbs or spotlights in with the lamps and not in the geeral scene.  My test render kind of sucks, but hopefully you can see the flame glowing.

    zz01 lamps flames found in model level of castle dungeon figure aftr hide some walls.JPG
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    zz02 shader tree for lamp flame could copy flame color map to glow channel.JPG
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    zz03 lamp flames copied to glow.JPG
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    zz04 test render with lame glow channel on.jpg
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    Post edited by Diomede on
  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    cripeman's flame tutt

  • AlbertoAlberto Posts: 1,381
    edited December 2019

    FLUIDOS II would be helpful too.

    CastleDungeon.png
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    Post edited by Alberto on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,106
    Alberto said:

    FLUIDOS II would be helpful too.

    Absolutely! Remember my water splash vfx tutorial thingy I did with Fluidos before? Well for flames like this, we can use Fluidos II and render animated flames in many situations, and play the result on a card that is attached to a torch, or whatever. I do that now with stock footage video - Fluidos II will be even better - All Carrara/DS!!!

  • sadly I cannot see the image but I have seen his awesome videos of his newest plugin with flames and clouds yes

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,106

    sadly I cannot see the image but I have seen his awesome videos of his newest plugin with flames and clouds yes

    Here you go

  • its showing now but thanks, must have been the cloudflare thingyes

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 2019

    Diomede's suggestion is probably the simplest method. I don't have the product, so I don't know how complex it is, but personally, before mucking about in the vertex modeler, I would take a look at the object's Shader Tab and see if I could spot the flame shader in the list of shading domains. If you can't find it, that way, then defininitely the beggining of Diomede's instructions are the way to go.

    To get the glow, Diomede is 100% correct about copying the map in the color channel to the glow channel. He is also 100% correct about how to add a light. I would add to that however, and suggest using a bulb light, and then adjusting the color to match the flame. I would also adjust the range and the falloff so that it seemed like the light a fire would cast and not a 100 watt bulb. Next, I would use the bulb's lightlinking abilities to exclude the model the flame is applied to, if possible. For a little more realism, add a realistic 3d light sphere from the bulb's Effects Tab.

    If the scene is animated, I would hide the flame model and use the fire primitive with a bulb to add light. Uncheck the box on the fire primitive that casts shadows to avoid weird shadow artifacts from the fire. Set the bulb up similar to what I described above for brightness, fall off, etc. I'll try and include a sample image of what can be done with the fire primitive.

    This image uses a volumetric cloud with a high intensity bulb light or two placed in the cloud to creat the explosion effect. For the gunfire, I used a flame image mapped to a plane (including glow channel), and a bulb light with light sphere to add more luminosity.


    Here's a youtube video showing the animated gunfire. I used an oscillate tweener for visibility for the flame and the bulb light. I also added a spin modifier to the flames so they looked like there was movement to them, rather than just a pure strobing effect.


    The second image uses the fire primitive paired with a bulb light and light sphere.


    The final image uses a lot of postwork for the sparks, but they were all rendered in Carrara using a V4 as the particle emitter. The campfire is the fire primitive with the bulb ligh and light sphere.

    I can't speak to Fluidos, because I haven't really had a chance to try it yet.

    Planet Terror02.jpg
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    Fire spirit- with buffers.jpg
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    demonic pinup.jpg
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    Post edited by evilproducer on
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