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In this tutorial we show how Phoenix works together with tyFlow.

We generate particles using tyFlow. When bombs hit the ground, bounced particles are procedurally created.

tyFlow's particles contain velocity data and Phoenix can use this data as a source for fire and smoke to produce realistic explosion plumes.

The structure of this tutorial is very similar to another tutorial - Artillery Explosion. However, in this article, we put more attention on the pyro shader and add more details to the fire components. The explosion and rising dust are set to different RGB colors. Together with the color gradient in the volumetric shading, we get colorful and rich result in the final shading.

We take advantage of the Time Base - Particle Age, a powerful feature of the Fire/Smoke Source. It allows you to animate the emission of fluid based on the age of each individual particle.

This simulation requires tyFlow v0.16089 (Beta), Phoenix 4.10 Official Release and V-Ray Next Official Release for 3ds Max 2015 at least. If you notice a major difference between the results shown here and the behavior of your setup, please reach us using the Support Form.

Press the Download button below to get an archive with the start and end scenes.

This download package does not contain the HDRI maps used in the scene. However, you can download the HDRI maps (quarry_02, made by Sergej Majboroda) from the HDRIHeaven website.

Here is a preview animation of the particle simulation in its current state.

The bomb particles are generated from the emission plane. Once the bombs hit the collision plane, four different helper geometry instances are created at that spot: Cone_V_Dust, Cylinder-ground-fire, Sphere_core001, and Sphere_core002. This way our setup looks like this:

1. tyFlow-Bombs particles are generated from the surface of Plane-bomb-emitter;

2. Major_explo particles are generated from the surface of Sphere_core001;

3. V_dust particlesare generated from the surface of Cone_V_Dust;

4. Ground_fire particles are generated from the surface of Sphere_core002;

5. Falling_fire particles are generated from the surface of Cylinder-ground-fire.

Here is a Preview Animation of the simulation up to this step.

Here is a preview animation of the simulation after the last step. Now we see the explosion and the burning fuel, but the smoke looks too thin.

Let's see how to enhance it.

Here's a preview of the simulation with the render settings changed.

Now we have thicker smoke appearance and the color variation of the smoke looks more convincing. However, V_dust appears too uniform. Let's tackle that.

Run the simulation again.

Let's see a preview animation. Notice that V_dust now looks more organic. However, although many bombs hit the ground, we can only see one fiery explosion in the preview. In the next step, we are going to take care of that.

With the new position of the keyframes and the Time Base set to Particle Age, run the simulation again.

Now we start to see multiple explosions in the scene. To improve the fluid simulation, let's switch the conservation method to PCG Symmetric in the next step.

With the new Conservation Method, run the simulation again. As you can see, our fluid simulation's movement is more realistic now.

Run the simulation again.

Here is a preview animation of the simulation after the last step. Although we have added the ground_fire source to the sim, we still can't see any ground fire in the preview and this is the next thing we will take care of.

Run the simulation again.

Let's see a preview animation of this simulation run. Now we start to see ground fire in the preview. The fire grows gradually once the bombs hit the ground.

Run the simulation again.

Here is a Preview Animation of the simulation up to this step.

Run the simulation again.

Here is a Preview Animation of the simulation up to this step.

Run the simulation again.

Here is a Preview Animation of the simulation up to this step.

Here is a Preview Animation of the final simulation.

And here is the final rendered result.