The main reference for the effect is this strange ice phenomena, where methane bubbles form under the ice and they explode creating some awesome flames.
Here’s the material in context. I really liked the penumbra scene, but I went for a “blue hour” look instead. I wanted the ice to look mystical, glowing with bioluminescence.
Nick from @JangaFX gave me a license to use both EmberGen and VectorayGen for this sketch.
Sooo cool right?
So, I’ve been playing with them for a while. They are super easy to use and I had such a great time creating diferent settings and iterating through until I found something I liked!
Download them both right now from the JangaFX website!
These are some of the first tests I made.
I’ll be using VectorayGen to create embers and snowflakes, and I’ll be using EmberGen for the flames.
Short video playing with some parameters such as cooling, fuel loss, combustion ignition, etc. Since the reference is methane bursting into flames and the environment is cold, the flames should dissapear fast and move upwards in a chaotic manner.
I created the frozen bubbles using blender. I made the central one a bit different and symmetrical to create contrast and thus making that zone the focal point, since the main effect is spawning there.
I kept working on the ice material since it is a key element to convey that “freezing cold environment” feeling.
The bubbles are just some basic geometry that I made using Blender. Then, I imported them into the scene, placed them wherever I felt like, and then merged them all into a single Static Mesh.
Since this is just a sketch, I didn’t worry that much about optimization and such. I just wanted to test stuff out, try new things and see if they would work well together in a real case scenario. It ended up looking great, so I left them as they are!