Polyfjord®

Asset: Customizable Fireball

Added 2021-10-13 13:40:50 +0000 UTC

Hello Material Viewers!

As promised, here is the project file for a customizable fireball! (Download link at the bottom of the post). It also includes 17 frames of pre-baked smoke data, so you should be able to open in Blender and start rendering immediately!

This project file will make much more sense if you've watched the fireball tutorial from last week! If you delete the bake (Cache -> Free All), you can change any setting you'd like, and test different results. The cache is currently set to be in the same folder as the .blend file.

The duration of this smoke bake is only 17 frames, but this can be increased in the Domain Physics Properties -> Fluid -> Cache -> End (which is set to 17). The thumbnail image from the fireball tutorial (only mirrored) is from frame 17 of the simulation.

Some stats about this project file:
Resolution Division: 98
Noise UpRes: 6
Expected bake time: 1~5 min based on your CPU. (17 frames takes 1m37s on Intel i7-6850K)
Expected render time: 10-45 sec per frame based on your GPU. (~15s/frame on GTX 1080ti). To speed things up, you can set the resolution to 50% and disable the compositor.

The project file is made in an experimental build of Blender version 3.0.0 alpha, so it might be unstable. This is so we can use the MUCH faster Cycles X engine. If something seems to be broken or no longer working, please leave a comment and I'll test it with another experimental build.

The settings marked in red are the ones that are adjusted from the default smoke settings. (They are explained in the fireball tutorial).

It also includes a compositor setup with lens distortion, glare and animated sensor noise. Subtle sharpening and directional blur (which was used in the thumbnail) can also be enabled.