Wondering if anyone could help me. I seem to have run into the issue since the beginning of the smoke simulator’s integration into blender.
Basically, it renders smoothly until about a certain frame. Then, the simulation begins to speed up, the smoke puffs (or fire, in my case) lose all the nice realism, and I get what can only be described as a stepp-y effect. In other words, like chunks or patterns are visible in the smoke and fire, giving away the effect and generally looking terrible.
I have tried: increasing the resolution, using the High Rez option, baking the sim, increasing the particle count, changing the voxel interpolation to smoother settings, changing the particle timestep & subframe amount, making the domain an even integer, and finally lowering the Domain’s “density” and “temp difference” settings (for slower rising smoke). None of these have successfully gotten rid of the problem.
That’s a good suggestion, but I don’t want to change the shape of the flames too much. I just want to get rid of this error. I think it’s a bug with the simulation.
Here’s a video showing the effect. You’ll notice it begins about half-way through:
You can see that I have the same or a similar problem here with my explosion test. (watch in HD) It already has a really high subdivision and turbulence and all that, but it still shows through.
Basically I think it’s a limitation of the current smoke system, and I am hoping really hard that this gets fixed in the GSOC project concerning the smoke sim.
Basically I think it’s a limitation of the current smoke system, and I am hoping really hard that this gets fixed in the GSOC project concerning the smoke sim.
Amen to that. I heard Daniel Genrich is working on updating the smoke sim? That would be fantastic. Because I have tried every hack and workaround, and eventually, if a sim lasts too long, it becomes jagged or stepp-y. Also I think the domain temperature increases, because the flames get faster and faster. I’ve tried keyframing the temperature to actually decrease, but to no avail.
Other features (after that gets fixed) would be nice: real-time domain scaling based on the resolution (like in Houdini), and physics-based fluid and fuel emitters. Would definitely bring up the overall quality of the engine.
BTW - on a different note, I’ve slightly reduced the stepp-y effect by increasing the smoke Density scale to 12, and the Bright and Contrast to 2. It gives it a bit more of a gaseous effect, something I’m always reaching for:
