Using the built-in plugin CC Particle World and a few tricks, learn how to create this fairly realistic looking fire shot
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Step 1
Make a new composition. Use whatever settings you like to have. Call it "Main".
Step 2
Now, create a new solid which will be the main fire element. Call it "Particles" and apply CC Particle World to it.
Step 3
Start by changing Longevity to 2.3, later you can change it as needed for height of your fire.
Open Physics menu and lower Velocity down to 0 because we want fire to move according only to gravity.
Change Gravity to -0.02.
Next, open Particle menu and change Particle type to Tetrahedron. You can try other types but this one looked good for me.
Step 4
To change a shape of animation a bit closer to look of fire, change Death Size to 0.110, Size Variation to 100% and Max Opacity to 20%
Now the colors, I went with #FFBF74 and #FF6C00, it’s better to use dull colors because then it’s easier with color correction later as you’ll see.
Open the Producer menu and change Position values to move emitter closer to bottom of the view. Change Position Y to 0.13 and Position Z to -0.52.
Also you need bigger emitter so change Radius X to 0.10.
Turn off the Grid and save.
Step 5
Precompose "Particles" layer and call it "Particles_percomp". Don’t forget to check Move all attributes into the new composition. Open "Particles_precomp". Highlight "Particles" layer and apply CC Vector Blur. This will give us some of that fire texture.
Change Amount to 45.
Save.
Step 6
Apply Turbulent Displace to the same layer which will give us some irregularity. For this one you don’t have to change anything unless you want to.
Next, go back to "Main" composition and duplicate "Particle_precomp" layer three times.
Save.
Step 7
Now, we’re going to polish and color correct to get a nice looking flame.
First set the upper layer’s Blending Mode to Add.
Then select the lowest one, apply Fast Blur to it and set Blurriness to 200. Tick Repeat Edge Pixels.
Still it doesn’t look quite right. Create a new Adjustment Layer above all three fire layers.
Save.
Step 8
Apply Bezier Warp (Distort>Bezier War) to the adjustment layer. Set its parameters to something similar as seen in screenshot. Save.
Step 9
Next, highlight all the layers and precompose them into "Fire_element" composition. Stay inside "Fire_Precomp".
Now you’ll do some compositing - you have to arrange a composition of those "Fire_element" layers. Now it’s all about you creativity as you can do that on your own. Use scale for variation and don’t forget to offset everything so there would be no identical animation.
Also, set the blending mode for every layer to Add.
Save.
Step 10
Next, I created a new Adjustment Layer and applied Bezier Warp to it and animated it so everything looks a bit better. You can do that too if you want. This again, depends on your desires.
Step 11
Now you can color correct the fire. Create a new Adjustment layer and apply Fill effect to it. Set its color to red and change layers Blending mode to Add. Save.
Step 12
Precompose everything to "Fire_Composite". Now, you should find a texture for glass and import it. Place it inside "Main" composition and correct its size if needed so it would fill the screen.
Step 13
Turn off its visibility as it’ll serve only as a layer map now.
Highlight "Fire_Composite" and apply both CC Vector Blur and CC Glass to it.
Change Vector Blur Amount to 40, Angle Offset to 22 degrees and set Vector map to your glass texture layer (Glass_texture.jpg). This will give some additional distortion.
Set Type to Constant Length. Save.
Step 14
Select CC Glass and change Bump Map to your glass texture layer.
Change Softness to 1, it’ll give bunch of detail.
Then change Height to 20 to bring down sharpness.
Set Displacement to 200.
As you can see, there’re black stuff going on around borders. Scale up "Fire_Composite" layer until you can’t see them anymore. Save.
Step 15
Again, precompose everything to "Fire_Precomp". Bring in your glass texture and scale it so it would fit the screen. Change its Blending mode to Screen.
Step 16
Create a new Adjustment Layer and apply Curves and Levels to it.
Draw a curve so it would give some contrast.
Step 17
Now, change the Gamma for Levels so it would give a satisfactory outcome.
Step 18
The fire looks a bit dull, so go to "Fire_Composite" composition and apply Glow to the upper, already created, Adjustment Layer. No further changes are necessary unless you want a different look.
Save.
You’re done!
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )khan July 22nd
great tut
( )thanks
PhSn July 22nd
nopt really realistic, but fine
( )Lyndon July 22nd
why you gotta salt his game like that homie. all up in his kool aid and stuff yo.
( )Donnovan August 10th
Who are you the fresh prince of bail air? LOL hahahahaha why are you talking like that?
liran taviv July 22nd
awsome!
( )BAD GHOST July 22nd
nice one i really like it
( )Shark Design July 22nd
I’m second
Great tutorial
( )jink July 22nd
looks pretty fair
( )per July 22nd
Looks like alive wall painting
awesome
( )JohnS July 22nd
Looks awesome!
( )jasonjaco July 22nd
sounds like your frying bacon!
( )Looks good though.
Lyndon July 22nd
it does sound like frying bacon! thx for the tut though, i like it a lot better than the others ones. ill definitely be putting it to use.
( )Titso July 22nd
It’s realistic enough to have in the background of f. ex a burning city. Great tutorial!
( )Eddie Bogdanov July 22nd
You’re right, thsi isn’t meant to be realistic, this is purely for motion graphics.
( )Rafael Guerra July 22nd
I used a similar technique for a Pyrotechnics contest…Vector Blur is really the magic behind it.
( )dan July 22nd
nice, my 1st week in motion gfx world. i’ll give it a shot
( )David W. July 22nd
It’s about time you showed us how you made your entry for Evan Schaible’s pyrotechnics contest: http://www.vimeo.com/groups/17413
( )Nice result and it’s kinda similar to my process!
abhay sharma July 23rd
too far from the reality
( )sama July 23rd
and awesome for motion graphics. thx!
( )Jason July 23rd
it doesn’t look 100% real…
but i needed something like this for my school camp video.
awesome keep it up it worked excellently
( )bir July 23rd
I would of never said anything if it wasn’t for the last 2 tuts you ripped off from video copilot, but this is a total rip off of a project file andrew posted in december with a few slight alterations on it so you could deny copying his project.
http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2008/12/544/
Let me guess, you never saw this one either right? I would give you the benefit of the doubt on this, but after the last 2 copies i had to say something. You just changed what you could here and used slightly different filters that do the same thing as VCP. This is not an original tut by any means. This dude should not aloud to post and get paid here anymore.
( )Lloyd July 23rd
[EDITOR'S REPLY] I reviewed the VC proj file and I’ve determined that even if he did know about this project file, this would be a derivative work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work) and not a copy. There are only a few ways to make fire in AE and this is one of them and Andrew did not invent it. Check this out for more proof that all fire made in AE tends to look similar: http://www.vimeo.com/groups/17413
( )Eddie Bogdanov July 23rd
Believe or not but non of my tutorials are VCP’s inspired.
( )bir July 23rd
ok.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5QGkOGZubQ&feature=related
Lloyd July 23rd
LOL
( )Nick July 23rd
Excellent tutorial, thanks.
( )Billy July 23rd
Eddie has been accused of pretty much copying every tutorial he has put up. After a few accusations the “when there’s smoke there’s fire” axiom should be kicking in.
I will agree that there are only a few ways to make fire with just the packaged plugins….so why is it that AETUTS is paying to have yet ANOTHER tutorial about making fire?
None of Eddie’s work has been original…and yet we are still subjected to it. I think that is the point. Unless he comes up with an original idea I don’t think AETUTS should be accepting anything from him. Is it that there just aren’t that many great tutorials coming in so you have to take whatever is submitted?
( )Rafael Guerra July 23rd
Maybe its a little too harsh…my opinion is that although we can find some of his techniques to be very…VERY…similar to other sites, I don´t think he “copied”. Definably not in this one…
I would however like to give him a suggestion so that no one else will ever “accuse” him again…I think for his next tut, he should present us a truly birrliant idea…nothing seen before, like the “Odyssey Logo” tutorial or any “Form Tut from Mr. Lloyd” because this entire site is about hard and brilliant effects… I don´t think he copied, but all the techniques in his tutorial have been learned from somewhere else, at least for me…
( )Lyndon July 23rd
good point, he should blow the haters out the water or keep getting ran over. go ahead and prove us wrong eddie! cool tut though, just not amazing
Yann July 23rd
Nice job dude !
( )By the way I’m going to riga next week ! I hope to have fun in your country !
cheers
Eddie Bogdanov July 24th
Great to hear.. enjoy it!
( )Mike July 23rd
Regardless of its originality or not, it’s a good tutorial. It introduces AE users to valuable effects and how they work, if they don’t know. Plus, it looks much better than VCP’s fire anyway.
Tutorials shouldn’t only be “look at my original creation so that you can go copy it,” they can also be about different ways to use the tools to create something. This one does that. Maybe not for all users, but for some who aren’t aware of the effects, it will. So who cares if he gets paid or not? Did it come out of your bank account?
( )Evan Schaible July 23rd
Hey Eddie,
Great tutorial. Anyone with some artistic sense can see that you didnt rip off Andrew. I wonder why no one attacks people who do typography for copying the guy who invented it (whoever that was). But anyhow, keep it up man and dont listen to the naysayers, they are just jealous because you got 150 bucks and they didnt.
PS: I wonder how many entries well see based on this to the contest now.
( )Eddie Bogdanov July 24th
Thanks people, I’ll try to do something completely different next time, although I was thinking that this tut will be the one that’s different from VCP. I didn’t know about that project file.
( )Also, here is a bit more “dynamic” result: http://vimeo.com/5713668
vic July 24th
20! damn. lol. it wasn’t until i was in my early 20’s that i realized i like doing the same thing (incl. film and video) and that was just a few years ago, lol. keep it up. and always remember it’s about the story first.
nick campbell from greyscale gorilla presentation–might be good for you too!!
http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2009/02/09/presentation-how-to-be-creative-and-get-paid/
http://vimeo.com/nickc
but at the end of the day u learn by doing!!! peace!
( )Carlos Crooks July 24th
Awesome! Something I exactly needed!
( )David_97 July 26th
In my opinion, there is too much Vector Blur. Other wise its okay.
( )-David
Martin Klekner July 27th
Instead of default Vector Blur for the Particles layer, try the Direction Center type with Angle Offset -20. Looks more realistic to me. =)
( )- Martin
tailaday July 28th
nice not a realstic but fine compose if turbolance displacement has used may be it will reallly look as fire ………..
( )tailaday July 28th
and may be vector blur is too much if used around 17 to 30 may be it will pretty fine …………….
( )Crownbay July 31st
This is pretty good. I needed something like this and i found it. Whaoo! Thumbs up Eddy, don’t mind some guys, they are just jealous.
( )Richard Cave August 2nd
I dont care if the file has been taken from another site, thanks eddie for posting.
I learnt a lot more today about a subject that I was weak at.
There is no such thing as a new joke or magic trick, they have all been done before.
Each artist has a different format, and there is no right or wrong way to do anything on after effects.
This is a small industry and it pays to respect each other, There are a lot of designers and effects artists that are not working all due to saying the wrong thing or not being a team player.
All that matters is that we cooperate with each other and respect each other. It is easy on the internet to prey on and flame someone. No pun intended.
There is a cult growing around AK website and he is not a god/rock star and others are allowed to use the same ideas.
So if someone were to come on here and share a simpler way of doing something or explaining it easier I say you are welcome.
Nuff said.
( )John August 2nd
Good point Richard. This site should just copy all of the tutorials from Video Copilot and then we will never learn new things. Just rehash all the same ideas by people that don’t even know what they are doing.
Everyone likes when someone like Maltaannon actually expands on a tutorial and adds additional info but this guy is nothing like that. He is copying stuff and not even doing a good job plus it’s not the first time I suspect.
You should encourage people to think of new ideas to share not excusing copy-cats.
( )Anthony Proulx August 20th
Cool Effect, it would be good for a transition to start it small and take over entire screen.
( )Quintin September 6th
Very cool effect. I felt that the tutorial itself was lacking, though. It was difficult to read and follow, especially for a beginning AfterEffects user such as myself.
Being fairly new to the program, myself, I often didn’t know where to go to find the effects and commands that you used… the tutorial would have been much easier if you had. I also think it would be great if you could explain the logic behind your actions. The more we know about our goals and the steps to get to them, the better.
Thanks for the tutorial!
( )Zach H September 9th
Well here is my attempt, peace
http://vimeo.com/6488504
( )Jon September 11th
It was a very useful tutorial. Fire has been done in many ways and there are several duplicate tutorials out there for almost EVERYTHING…not copying.
This one was however worded better, and went straight through logically, as opposed to many other tutorials I have read. Great Job! and Sveiks!
( )nanzky September 12th
Thank you so much!!!
( )