Procedural Cartoon Flames in Blender

#flames #animation #blenderIn today's Blender Box episode we take a look at using Eevee to create some cool, procedural and simple cartoon flame effects using just some simple meshes, a displacement modifier and some clever voronoi texture materials. Let's do it!

[@tylangs7610]

Tutorial still works in 4.2 but will need some adjustments. At 1:03 Bloom has been disabled so you will need to add that manually by 1) Giving the Flame Object an Emission Material (this will be the same "FlameRed" material that is used for the Flame) 2) Go to the compositor and add a Glare node in between the Render Layers node and Composite node 3) Set the Glare Type to Bloom (first dropdown) At 1:35 Blend Mode has been replaced with Render Method, to get the same effect as the Alpha Clip option 1) Add a Math node right after the second Color Ramp node. Color output should go to Value input on the Math node, Value output on the Math node should go to Color input on the Invert Color node 2) Set the mode to Greater Than. At 2:09 the Mix RGB node has been replaced with the Mix Color node. Can be used pretty much the same. At 3:28 if the color of your fire is looking faded 1) Go to the Render Settings tab on the right side 2) Find the Color Management dropdown menu and set View Transform to Filmic (it might be on AgX). You will need to tweak some of the Voronoi values, Glare values, and Color Ramps to get the same result as in the video but it is mostly the same. You can also try rotating each flame layer on the Z-axis to make them look better.

[@malgaming7357]

Marry me

[@iuhhhhhhhh]

i love you

[@ravendaee]

Thank you!

[@dariaudachina4488]

dude you're an angel.

[@ofribarak2005]

I changed the colors a bit and it looks way too cool for a beginner like me. Thanks for making my render look a thousand times better

[@therealblenderbox]

No problem!

[@Yuzuru_istg]

​@@therealblenderbox Hey I tried to make the flames just like you said but they are acting like they are both one so I cant make the other flame a different color what do I do ?

[@5ucur]

@@Yuzuru_istg You need to duplicate the flame material. When in Shading tab, after duplicating, scaling, etc the flame icosphere, also click the two papers icon near the material's name, around the top right of the node area. I had this problem too.

[@monsoonsheep]

There's so many methods of creating flames, this is actually a cool one. Thank!

[@therealblenderbox]

Glad you like it!

[@ashy49592]

@therealblenderbox can you make blood splashes I need it for my game i don't know how to make it myself

[@daemondoodles]

Wof, I feel like I've been on a journey by the end of this. I love this style of video, short, comprehensive, to the point! Makes this surprisingly fun. Thanks a lot!

[@therealblenderbox]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@icewitch1182]

I've been spending a good few weeks deciding on how to do effects for my game especially since I suck at drawing fire this is definitely going to help me make some basic fire ball spell

[@SATOhara3173]

Exactly the results I was looking for, you rock.

[@LostLoserHero]

I am making a pre rendered sprites game, chose blender because is what i know how to use. Your channels has all the cartoonish shader tutorials that i needed

[@therealblenderbox]

Awesome!

[@TheSticknation]

Can't believe this channel is still new! Friggin Awesome content!

[@therealblenderbox]

Welcome aboard!

[@TorchOG]

If you want bloom on eevee go into compositing and add a glare node and set to bloom Also join the layers of fire after you're done with material setup makes things easier

[@tehsensei]

I'll add that you need to go into the viewport shading settings (the 4 buttons at the top right where there's Solid preview, Material preview, etc), click the down arrow to expand the options, then set the 'Compositor' at the bottom to 'Always'. You can switch it to 'Camera' if you only want the bloom effect visible when you use a camera. If you're not seeing it still, delete the Glare node and add a new one. Hope this helps!

[@roastingminer6919]

Yep this channel is a life saver 😭

[@therealblenderbox]

Thankyou so much!

[@ThatElfNerd]

The only thing that I wish was an option was finding a way to make the animation loop. It's always a jarring change when it starts up again.

[@MargotsChannel]

You can partially, (it does not loop the shaders but only the empty, it honestly is much harder to see the skip using this method). I used the concept of circular motion. I used for driver formulas in the motion of the empty x=5*cos(2 *pi/240*frame) y=5*sin(2 *pi/240*frame) To make it loop every 240 frames. Annoyingly, blender seems to have issues with putting frame in a trig function but I found a work around of first setting it to #frame. Then editing it with the formulas listed.

[@grandimations7309]

This tutorial is not only good for making toon flames, but toon tears in eyes as well! You can literally stop as soon as you're past the Voronoi Texture step!

[@Ilias_Trainer]

This video so much helpin me in my project. Its the best tutorial I ever saw. Thank you.

[@artofjackson.O.K]

R E S P E C T Man, Respect !! ....I'm gonna try this when i get some free time

[@GabrielDalposso]

Made the material with Noise instead of voronoi, it was really good too :) Thanks for the tutorial! I'll see if I can use the animation as a texture atlas in UE5

[@therealblenderbox]

Awesome, well done for making it your own! I use this for animation directly in Blender so I'm not sure about UE.

[@perlablancarte4527]

I love your channel. I'm an animator and an Illustrator. Your tutorials are so friendly, keep going! Thanks for share your knowledge :)

[@therealblenderbox]

You're very welcome!

[@geeveeselibio935]

love how easy the tutroials man

[@therealblenderbox]

Thanks!

[@werewolver12]

I really love the result. It's amazing

[@Luke.J358]

Dope tutorial prefect for calcifer!

[@ZeroChronicles01]

dude thank you so much! honestly i needed this for my project! A suggestion for a video, how about electricity? coming off a pole or like a wand?

[@therealblenderbox]

Thanks for the idea!

[@aurafireheart]

I thought I had it right to a point but now they just resemble those weird wobbly people outside car dealerships so I've obviously done something wrong but I have no idea what 😂 FR though amazing job with the tutorial. Clear, to-the-point, and easy to understand.

[@EnriqueRodriguez-ye8qq]

I turned it into Cursed Energy from Jujutsu Kaisen, looks straight from the show! Thanks 👍

[@tenebra9962]

Thank you! This helped a lot, for my first try it doesn't even look too bad. Your tutorial was great to follow along! I just need to understand what I just did there, because without tutorials, I am absolutely incapable with this software.

[@therealblenderbox]

Glad it helped!

[@dreamcatch9561]

Worked well!! Some parts were so fast i had to relisten 10 times. but that's because i'm new to blender!! Thank you for a good video.

[@therealblenderbox]

You're welcome!

[@pokeprogaming8528]

Only 10?

[@Camilo16l]

Thanks!

[@DandeDingus]

using this for my bachelor project, gonna rig it as well to have the flame top drag after the main thing and boom, i got a fire ball i can let my character throw

[@mind_glowing]

Absolutely love this tutorial! The effect is also much cooler AND much more performant than the built in fire quick effects.

[@davicanti]

ok this is nuts

[@fico539]

Thanks, I'm still changing and adjusting things.

[@moldysann7083]

Great stuff as always mate! Also you can Crl J to automatically assign a frame to any selected nodes if anyone wants to save some time !

[@therealblenderbox]

That's a great tip, thankyou!

[@MetalGearTrav]

This was great!!! thank you!

[@DragonsAnthemGames]

this is pretty cool and helpful thanks

[@k1ngsmanyt391]

great video man

[@Argyle302]

Good to see the trash is getting cleaned up.

[@One_PiEcE_2029-fo2jr]

what do you mean?

[@tatianamarinho6482]

thank you SO much for this

[@ilhamwibowo3514]

Cool, thanks for sharing! & please upload more video relate with non realistic animation

[@ilhamwibowo3514]

i can't afford after effect, so your tutorial help my learn 2D motion graphics (that was in after effect) in blender

[@ilhamwibowo3514]

jazakumullah khairan

[@therealblenderbox]

Plenty more on the way!

[@markokovacevic3225]

Epic! Thanks for sharing!

[@therealblenderbox]

Thanks for watching!

[@matiasherrera5173]

Amazing tutorial! Thank you so much

[@therealblenderbox]

You're very welcome!

[@shieldo_]

Thank you

[@lightningthebeast]

This is amazing

[@therealblenderbox]

Thankyou!

[@sketch3735]

3 minutes in man has added 4 quintillion nodes, this is a node tutorial.

[@Doktornoah]

Thanks Bro

[@otagmusic]

Love you dude ❤

[@therealblenderbox]

no u xx

[@hoshigamesofficial]

Bro is cooking literally

[@Twitchy_McExorcism]

For anyone dealing with the washed-out color effect, I don't have a fix, but here's the most I could figure out: Tried to append these fires from one file to another and the colors were pale, went back to the original file and everything was fine, screwed with settings, no dice, couldn't figure out the problem or why emission seemed to screw with the color, so I tried plugging JUST the emission into the material output independent of all the other settings. The washing out has nothing to do with the rest of the nodes, it just happens when you increase the emission by more than 4-7 depending on the color. When using the old file, I get the exact same effect when cranking the emission up to the 40-50 range. My best guess is that something has simply changed in the way Blender does emission, and if so, *this tutorial is out of date.* The fires might work as is if made/appended into an older file or previous version of blender, but that's probably it.

[@SmashtoonGamer]

It’s probably your color settings. Go to color management in your render properties and change it off of AgX

[@Twitchy_McExorcism]

@@SmashtoonGamer This, definitely! I also made the mistake of only changing the output settings rather than the render settings and wondered why it didn't seem to be updating.

[@intelligence-8007]

thankssssssss

[@nobodynobodoy2695]

Coolio, now i just have to figure out how to export this type of thing lul

[@GenuineHeals]

thanks a bunch

[@wiseknight6180]

hi great tutorial but um, my flames were moving but they were going in reverse, so i tried to use negative numbers and they stopped moving completely. and when i switch back, it doesnt even move anymore. any help? edit: i fixed it, i just needed to delete the drivers and re typed it, instead of re typing it while it already has a driver

[@UzumenoOdori]

what happened between 1:00 at 1:03 ?, the shape seems so different

[@Whirow_but_green]

if your ico is moving up just go to the blank asset and type in Z #frame/10 there instead not in the ico sphere

[@amokahani]

my flame is moving up.

[@betthavem4826]

mine's too, how do i solve this

[@Whirow_but_green]

put the #flame/10 in the blank asset

[@kadabra8]

Дуже круто) теж хочу навчитися так майстерно користуватися системою node

[@deevashsewpersadh6619]

I don't see a blend option in blender 4.2 in the textures

[@sirius9738]

How i Activate The "Bloom" on The 4.1 version?😢 Or that's comando haver a substitute?

[@sahilsheikh4829]

my flame isn't rotating to -90 degrees, it's always being sideways now matter what angle it is 😢

[@casuallydepressed3431]

This is something!!!

[@therealblenderbox]

Glad you like it!

[@suiparo]

how can we loop this animation? btw thank you for this tutorial, it is very helpful and easy to do!

[@TypicalNii]

I js started and I’m alr confused… how do I stretch it?

[@bigbobbrainy]

so i made the flame but its not as warped as it was with your settings in the video

[@abbalegol5636]

how can I transport this to unity? as an fbx, the flame just becomes a grey blob

[@r1n_ithink]

i did what you did in the video but i cant get the flames to move

[@divictum]

Hello. Cool video. Thank you for this. But I got mistake with #frame/-30 and my flame does not moving. Appears the error about phyton scripts. Help please? I need very much my flame to move

[@refreshingryan]

blender seems to have moved the bloom button and renamed some stuff, and I can't seem to make the fire transparent so there is just grey at the top for some reason. Edit: I'm an idiot, I used a translucent BSDF and not a transparent one.

[@fbx_file]

I dont know what im doing wrong, but my gradient texture is a harsh cutoff instead of the smooth one in the video. How do i fix this?

[@fbx_file]

Also some of the drivers comepletely bugged out.

[@InfiniteFoes]

I got shut down at the start because my mesh doesn't deform the same way as the tutorial's, same settings and all. I'll have to find a different method.

[@venomsnake_kh]

hello, how can I combine this method to make a cell shader? there its some node to mix this tutorial with the cell shader tutorial? pls help

[@crowngamer901]

Does this also work if you're not animating the icosphere? I need flames for a still render

[@KamiSanzo]

This is fantastic, how can I export it to unity?

[@theboizee6606]

I don't know what's wrong but the colour of my subsequent flames aren't changing

[@elite_scientist_tv_man]

i have a problem of the color ramp and the moving fire because i do the same and it doesn't work at all

[@elite_scientist_tv_man]

and the color ramp i can't find

[@elite_scientist_tv_man]

never mind i found it

[@hikari178]

Although this vid is 2 minutes long it took me more than 20 minutes to complete 💀

[@darkwallpaper]

ive got a problem when i duplicate the fire and try changing the color the other one changes too they both change color at the same time the duplicated one does not change to a different color without the first one changing too pls help edit:i fixed the problem and it looks nothing like his

[@kejimaeda]

I tried replicating this but my colors aren't as saturated, they come out somewhat washed out, any idea why?

[@elianrobles4108]

Hey, how can i import this to unity? It just shows like a white blob with out any color or animation

[@GamerGabe-k3e]

Ur not AI so imma sub

[@zionsky3342]

please provide the blend file this is driving me nuts

[@djendjan]

Hi how would you bake this including the animation? I'm struggling. I only left with the object but no animation

[@Nicdehouwer]

this guy played The Wind Waker

[@demircandemirci]

How can I make this flame interact light with objects? Please help. :/

[@nixelz7455]

idk why but when i apply the subdivision surface modifier my flame disapears, i mean it's still there cause if i switch to edit mode i can see the polygons, but it disapears on edit mode. Any idea?

[@redcloud16]

Thanks for the great tutorial, it mostly worked perfectly; only problem is when I render the flames go a bit too fast. Is there a way to slow them down a bit?

[@DiegoGarcia-oe4iy]

yes! I had my flames go slower than I wanted and I realized you can change the speed. go to minute 0:55 where he puts #frame/10 and change the number. the faster the invisible thingy moves, the faster the flames. so try #frame/15 or so to make them slower :D

[@returnedtomonkey8886]

@@DiegoGarcia-oe4iyThe bigger the number the slower it moves?

[@blacke03-newchannel]

I can't animate the flames, it just give me the message: "Can't edit driven number value, see graph editor for the driver setup", I need help .-.

[@BrapStephens]

My colors look very washed out. The color looks right, but without the emission. Once I crank emission up to 6, the glow is there, but the color trends to white. I copied the values in the video, and my fire looks like it has an multiply of white all over all the colors. Anyone know what I should be changing?

[@SmashtoonGamer]

It’s probably your color settings. Go to color management in your render properties and change it off of AgX

[@Jred2005]

@@SmashtoonGamer I love you

[@Pogge837]

Hi, I have a problem regarding this I can't really make the flame sits at the bottom at 3:07 I checked and I followed everything as you said. Is there any plugin involved or something?

[@Leonitusk]

switching up the color 1 and 2 where you mix everything with the Large flames fixed it for me

[@MuhammadQasim-lg2bs]

Ok I followed everything until 1:00 and moving the plain axis just inflates my icosphere and it's also way too smoothed out even tho my subdivison is at 3

[@randomlyproductions0_0]

Me: oh this isn’t too bad so far *shader editor section happens* Me: :( (This is still a really good tutorial though thanks

[@bestbannersever]

Thank you. How would I export as FBX animation or that just not possible with this approach. I like the explaining as you went along really helped me keep track. Cheers

[@therealblenderbox]

Sorry, no idea I use this for animation.

[@sipe9316]

There exists no "MixRGB". Is it an extension?

[@mich_ag18]

Same question

[@mich_ag18]

Its an update that made the "MIX RGB" change, heres a video explaining it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2Wqcnuuqal0qc0

[@RS-em1ki]

😁

[@zionsky3342]

bruh, I followed it perfectly yet mine is looking like crap haha the texture just looks circley

[@hantomeii]

Sadly not compatible with Blender 4.2. So many things are missing that it just becomes wobbly spotted egg

[@Speedy_M]

can i make it longer, like a trail

[@blendermerchant]

Does anyone know how to make a seamless loop with this?

[@DerexArchives]

could you attach the blend file please?

[@rumealpov]

anyone know if you can attach this fire to an object?

[@EstebanGunn]

Is there a way to adjust the frame rate of the driver?

[@joker807]

Very nice! Is there a way to make the flame animation loop seamlessly?

[@therealblenderbox]

Hmm, not sure. Maybe if you knew the initial starting cords of the displacement empty and some how looped back to them, in a circle maybe?

[@egghead2951]

cant find the mixrbg thing doesnt work it might in the older versions but not in the new blender

[@mich_ag18]

Its an update that made the "MIX RGB" change, heres a video explaining it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2Wqcnuuqal0qc0

[@egghead2951]

@@mich_ag18 thanks man/ woman

[@шешең]

When I duplicate the ico sphere there color doesnt change independantly, what hould i do?

[@therealblenderbox]

Duplicate your material too.