Simple Fire Tests using Dynamics.

Using the Dynamics menu and the create fire option I've done a few simple tutorials on the creation of fire in maya. Neither of these are very visually impressive and ill be looking into using the fluid system more in the future, but it was a good place to start.

By selecting the logs and using the create fire menu, when i run the simulation a flood of  green particles appear on the view port.

When i rendered it out the fire was unnaturally large for the campfire size, so using the attribute editor i changed the lifespan, starting size of the particles, fire scale, and intensity to try to make it more realistic.

This was the end result, a smaller, more manageable camp fire. This system however seems very simplistic and i think i can achieve much better results using the nDynamics fluid effects.

A problem with the simulation in maya is if you scrub through the timeline things can get a bit insane. The simulations run from one frame to the next and going backwards and forwards gets some strange results.

 The next part of the tutorial was adding that fire effect to the engine of a pod racer. After selecting one of the fins on the engine block and adding a fire effect from the dynamics menu, i messed around with settings to achieve the look i wanted. 

Initially the fire was far too long and not intense enough

After increasing the intensity and density of the fire, it was looking more striking but was still far too large.

 Then i reduced the lifespan drastically and slightly lowered the glow. Fires that are moving fast like this one would be are generally closer cropped to the source and in the previous renders it was too spread out.