Blender Tutorial - Rendering Fire with Transparency

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Blender tutorial! In this one we will be learning how to render fire with transparency! There is a little trick in the compositor that allows us to render fire. We basically mask out where the fire is and use that as the alpha.
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Blender Tutorial Fire Simulation Transparent Render BlenderMadeEasy
Eevee Cycles Compositor Nodes Alpha

[@ThioJoe]

Tip: When I made the 'Set Alpha' node, it made a lot of my fire missing / too transparent. There apparently is a new "mode" option in the Set Alpha node not seen in the video. I changed this mode setting from the default "Apply Mask" to "Replace Alpha" and it looked a lot better for me.

[@dumpsky]

ha! i confirm. just did that too. using 'replace alpha' is keeping the original render look intact in blender, but... render output in after effects looked super weird, no matter what alpha mode (in this case usually 'straight'). using the 'color ramp' inbetween like in the video but leaving its keys at the default from 0-1 seems to fix this.

[@davoodice]

thanks. you're awesome.

[@deepatterson1894]

I went to the "set alpha" in the compositor and changed it from to replace Alpha that did it for me.

[@davoodice]

@@deepatterson1894 based on my experiences green screen or blue or even back for back ground work much better than alpha. Emission channel doesn't have alpha in nature.

[@lmydawson5885]

Doesn't work. I still can't make my fire simulation have a transparent background

[@thingsinanutshell269]

Other videos took like 6 minutes to explain for us when it only took a few seconds for us to actually learn what we want to know. You go staright to the point and not alot of others do that, you earned a sub

[@NeogenCorp]

Thanks much. This also helped me solve a problem where the flames appeared in the rendered window after hitting F12, but not in the .png sequences. Great work as always.

[@linhbui7088]

Hi. Did you fix your issue? I have the same, when hit f12 it is ok but when save png file, the image has black border around fire, look so wierd.

[@MeownaMeow]

@@linhbui7088 png does not support emission over transparency, switch to OpenEXR format

[@badlotto]

My man! This helped me a TON. I was racking my brain trying to export a transparent image to composite in After Effects. All of my volume and emission based objects looked way off on export even though they looked fine in the render window. This did the trick!

[@SmellyNutz]

Really helped. Amazing videos of Physics simulations. Thanks a lot.

[@ereshhossain4105]

Thank you so much man! You are the best. Lots of love

[@thepuzzler317]

I love you’re tutorials

[@robfrydryck127]

Super well taught. Thank you

[@hman2912]

Thanks man. Awesome help

[@shibu5175]

Absolute lifesaver

[@gatoquantico3925]

Thanks a lot for this. Liked & Subscribed!

[@user-kq1jk3qe2e]

Thank you so much. This helped me! This Tutorial serise is very useful

[@jawadwaheed5105]

Amazing, Thank a lot

[@vlodgoral8258]

lifesaver, spent 2 hours before i found this trying to fix my flame when i save the render

[@ZipDraw]

OMG thank you so much for this!

[@ElisTheBest]

Thanks so much for the help!

[@dshetty99]

Thanks for sharing your approach to fix this transparency limitation. I already found a similar kind of approach by using the same composite nodes. But, I'm just wondering! Why this simple feature not so straight forward in the Blender.

[@JC97400]

I *just* so happened to need a tutorial for precisely this purpose. Thank you oh so very much.

[@sukwonkim1]

Thnak you! You just saved my life!

[@patrickkorf]

thx for the this tutorial. this is what i need.

[@domin6168]

Thanks, it'll come in handy :D

[@GoldenThumbs]

I made my flame mask a bit differently than you did and IMO it works better. Start off by rendering an additional layer, an emit layer (A layer that holds the color data for all emissive materials). This works for my case since the fire material is entirely emissive. I extract a new alpha channel from this by getting the max color values of the R,G,B color components, then I combine that with the alpha channel of the rendered image ("Add" with "Clamp" enabled or "Max" modes in a math node will work). Also took advantage of the Set Alpha node's new mode, which really helped. Looks perfect for my particular scene.

[@cyruscooper3511]

so helpful, thanks!

[@BlenderMadeEasy]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Colo118]

Using this trick in 2.93.4 made flames darker losing colorization and depth. Instead in Compositor i used an Alpha Over node with black color image followed by a luminance key and the result was surprisingly good.

[@PraxisVisuals]

It's another technique but I still face the problem of my flames turning a nasty faded yellow color... Ugh.

[@bilbag]

a huge THANKS!

[@PilotEffect]

your a legend, thanks.

[@bizzski]

How would you expand the mask? I have a neon sign with an emission that I am saving as a WEBM (transparent) format. *EDIT* The color ramp expands the mask. Thank you.

[@flarentia]

CAN SOMEONE PLS TELL ME WHY I DONT HAVE THE FILM AND TRANSPARENT OPTION ON MY BLENDER 2.79? PLS HELP

[@dumpsky]

i recommend denoising the alpha separately in compositing window when using low sample cycles.

[@zhoukun7972]

THANKS A LOT!!!!!

[@Azarath08]

Unfortunately this does not work for me. I'm rendering a spaceship with some volumetric engine effects. Wish to render on a transparent background for easier compositing. The engine effects are cut off as soon as they enter the transparent background. Using this trick and trying experimental Blender alpha builds does not solve the background. One workaround has been to make a physical plane with a greenscreen material and put it far into the background. However that method causes far longer render times, it gives less flexibility as then the greenscreen has to be masked out frame-by-frame afterwards and the list goes on. Everything looks great in preview render but the effects are gone in the final image

[@gametimeohkay9806]

thank you sir

[@linhbui7088]

Hi. When i make what you talk but when hit f12 to render, it is ok but when i save as png argb then the image has black border around fire? How can i fix that? Tks

[@Blazebud]

I subscribed because of the bouncy subscribe text.

[@panitiaujian2429]

thankyou

[@Bardo00000]

great tutor thanks! but I've got some problem, I've put the fire on an object(logo) and when I'm trying to render png with transparent background it rendering the object but not fire :c do you have any ideas how to render it?

[@rizerphe]

Why did the just transparent-filmethod stop working between 2.79 and 2.8?

[@RolandJVyens]

Thank god sir

[@MichaelFeyrerJr]

For some reason it's still exporting blank PNG files. Any idea where I went wrong? renders look great and it flashes to composite before moving on to the next frame. but the PNG's are empty.

[@linhbui7088]

Hi, have you fix your issue?

[@Colo118]

In 2.93 i had to change the Set Alpha mode to Replace Alpha and it worked.

[@rjwarzone]

@@Colo118 thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. it work for me

[@YanuarYudha]

@@Colo118 thank you. it is work for me too

[@Mendel226]

thanks for the video ! but i have a problem when i want to export my animation or png i don't see the flame only the sphere... someone can help me ?

[@CameronHennessy]

So how do i save the image and keep the fire on the saved image?

[@deepatterson1894]

I been following tutorial a few times now. Fire shows up in the render but when I save it in a PNG with RGBA, when I open up image all I see is the emitter. I've tried other tutorials with similar results. I'm reading ThioJoe below in the comments I going to try that and see what happens. But so far when on you're tutorial shows only the emitter mine renders out but saving it, it disappears.

[@PraxisVisuals]

I'm having the same issue. I can turn on Good-ole-fashioned "Film> Transparent" and in the renderer I can see my flame with alpha in all it's glory. But when I go to save it... There's nothing.

[@YanuarYudha]

@@PraxisVisuals same. i am still trying to find solution how to save png with fire

[@FarranLee]

Yo! This helped a lot! However, when I do this, the flames on the object are coloured but flames with no physical object behind them are greyscale. This is strange. Any ideas what's up?

[@10PMBedtime]

Where do people like you learn how to manipulate the node system so well? It's so confusing to me. I basically just watch the YT video I need for my specific task and just replicate but you guys do it like it's a second language?

[@BlenderMadeEasy]

Lot's of practice! I still have a hard time with nodes sometimes. It can get very confusing very quickly!

[@mujtabaalsaif7262]

Am getting a strange black shadow when trying to render. When i set the density to 0, no flame appears so i reduced it to .2 and i cant seem to get rid of that black shadow. any help please

[@linhbui7088]

Did you fix your issue?

[@tobisreveng3170]

This is so perfectly timed 😭, thank you

[@BlenderMadeEasy]

You're welcome 😊

[@OGPatriot03]

Wow, thank you! I've been trying to fix this issue forever! I knew exporting as EXR could work but I needed a PNG for game development. Superb video!

[@BlenderMadeEasy]

Glad it helped!

[@MimasAnimations]

When using After Effects you can use the plugin Unmult to remove a black background. Thats the way I've done that until today

[@mzcuber7266]

How about fire with smoke?

[@MimasAnimations]

@@mzcuber7266 I tested it with smoke which you can see here: prnt.sc/tyaxoh and it worked fine so I guess it would work with fire with smoke too. The plugin is free ;)

[@controllo2316]

Hey, I found a problem. When I turn on the environment fog and add vdb to render the transparent bottom, one pixel will be missing. I can find this problem during compositing. It's very strange.

[@deepatterson1894]

OK Fixed! I went back to compositor and changed the "set Alpha node" from Apply mask to Replace Alpha. Now it is transparent and fire shows in the render.

[@lisnafoxe]

да, брат! У МЕНЯ ПОСЛЕ ТВОЕГО КОММЕНТАРИЯ ТОЖЕ ПОЛУЧИЛОСЬ ))

[@urizaleon]

Excelente comentario, está fue la solución para mí, gracias señor Patterson

[@Devyldraws]

Dude thankyou!! ist FINALLY working!

[@beslinning]

My flame is always so short, nothing like the tutorials size. Happens everytime, i follow the tutorial precisely as instructed. Anyone knows why? It doesnt fill the domain.

[@rizerphe]

You can just open the "quick smoke" settings and choose "smoke+fire" there

[@12buddon36]

Only one color shows and it seems to be a translucent yellow I tried several things can’t figure it out

[@karolisputnikas7327]

I follow all steps, but when I render an image, it shows me only a transparent backround without any smoke? What's the issue?

[@Schmidtelpunkt]

Wow. Is there anything in Blender which does not require a workaround?

[@Fr0stbit3_]

Its not working for me. In the Compositing tab my screen shows up as black when I attached my render layers

[@x.4132]

Still no fire in the render as soon as its saved to a file (png or exr) :/

[@evskan2369]

thanks man, really helpfull. why does it have to be so janky and complicated? at least in older versions you can just use open GL Render and it just works. i mean the bloom too, what is even the point if you cant render it with transparency? pointless

[@etienneorion]

Avec Blender 3.4.1 on peut mettre le mode [REPLACE ALPHA] dans le node [SET ALPHA] et exporter une vidéo en transparence avec l'encoding QuickTime et le video codec QT. Merci pour cette vidéo !!!! ThioJoe l'a mentionné dessous en anglais

[@lmydawson5885]

Tried this so many times. Nothing shows up after the render is complete

[@yudayayuda4408]

v2.93.5 composition does not show in the viewer, export image results in an ugly green flame

[@dspcreations4738]

i cant render the fire

[@emmanuelelias3357]

Is this in 2.9?

[@gabrielbeniciobh]

nope, lower right corner says it's 2.83

[@KissingMonsters]

Anyone know where to do the quick effects in 2.9x?

[@VFORVICTORY1000]

@@KissingMonsters same in object->quick effects

[@OATZ_togo]

I m not emission😢

[@VFORVICTORY1000]

i follow these steps to 4:24 but i want to render fire to a png ,only can render a sphere omg please help me, imgur.com/6XxHjB3

[@bullmax2481]

Smoke renders just fine then you export and it's gone

[@prmnp]

Other tutorials: Press X and delete the default cube Blender Made Easy: *SEE THIS DEFAULT CUBE?* _(burns it)_ *NOW IT'S GONE*

[@felixcarmona6960]

I need help when I do the transparency thing and put it in after effects the fire becomes transparent