This is a volcano I’m working on (just for an image, not an animation or game), and I need some advice. How do you make realistic-looking lava on Blender?
You could either use a fluid sim or some simple modeling/sculpting to create the lava mesh. But for the material, Lava kinda has two parts to it.
- The hot, glowing, firey-red/yellow part.
- The darker, rockier, cooler part.
I would make two materials, one for the hot lava, and one for the cooler lava. Use material nodes to mix them both, using a texture as the factor. Then, maybe, use that same texture, and check “disp” in the “map to” panel.
Also, google some images of lava to get you thinking about how it should look.
Try fluid with a viscosity of honey.
in 2.5 there is a good fluid simulation… you can make 2 fluids that can interact with eachother… they can mix or stay seperated fluids and i think that is what you will be looking for…
I’m not totally certain that’s finished yet. Is it?
wow, that looks nice, SSimpossible 
it looks like that volcano has already destroyed everything around it, and is still going… still some geological/tectonic pressure to get rid of then…
from the texture on the cone, though, this volcano looks pretty small to me… maybe less defined pores on the solidified lava on the slopes would make it look bigger?
…unless the stone is like that? i’ve forgotten a lot of what i knew about volcanoes and lava-formed stone…lol
looks great, can’t wait to see the lava come out