Complete Guide to the Fire & Smoke Simulation in Blender 3D

Name: Complete Guide to the Fire & Smoke Simulation in Blender 3D
Rating: 4.7 (407 reviews)

Learn Everything About the Fire & Smoke Simulator in Blender While Creating Amazing Animations! 4.5+ Compatible!

Created byStephen Pearson

Last updated 9/2025

English

What you'll learn

Learn how to set up fire and smoke domains, sources, and emission settings for realistic results.
Control smoke and flame behavior using settings like vorticity, turbulence, and noise.
Animate fire and smoke interactions over time for dynamic scenes and visual effects.
Configure shaders, lighting, and render settings to create polished, believable fire & smoke.

Course content

6 sections • 49 lectures • 5h 12m total length

Introduction1:56
Downloading Blender0:39
Blender Basics21:11
What is the Fire & Smoke Simulation?3:19
Fire Simulation Basics P18:55
Fire Simulation Basics P27:15
Smoke Simulation Basics P16:55
Smoke Simulation Basics P26:02
Using Quick Effects2:13

Resources & Project Files0:06
Domain Smoke Settings6:42
In this video we take a look at the smoke behavior and how it effects the simulation in Blender 2.8!
Adaptive Domain2:39
Adaptive domain allows you to only bake in certain parts of the simulation. This can speed up bake times and render times.
Gas Settings3:10
Smoke flames are the values that change the height, speed, and density of the flames and smoke. And in this video I show you how it works.
Adding Noise2:56
Smoke Noise is a quick way to add lot's of detail to your smoke without going crazy high in the resolution.
Fire Settings3:54
Guiding Domains8:45
Guiding allows you to change the smokes velocity using an object or another simulation. In this video we take a fluid simulation and have the smoke follow it.
Guiding Effectors8:56
Guiding Effectors allow you to use an object to move the smoke in a certain direction.
Collections1:55
With collections you can limit the flows or the collisions that a simulation will have.
Baking Cache6:44
The cache is where all the simulation data is stored and there is more to it than you might think.
Field Weights2:10
Field weights are the strengths of the force fields in your simulation. It allows you to have certain force fields have more power than others.
Viewport Display5:05
Viewport display allows you to change how the smoke looks in the view. This does not effect the render, only the viewport. You can create some interesting results using this panel in Blender.
Velocity Scale Motion Blur2:29

Flow Objects P19:28
The smoke type is pretty easy to understand. It emits smoke into your scene. In this video we take a look at the settings and exactly what they do.
Flow Objects P28:46
The fire type emits fire into your simulation. There are a couple of settings that allow you to change how the fire looks and in this video we explore that.
Collisions6:19
The collision type is exactly how it sounds. It will act as a collision for the smoke. You can use this to block the smoke from entering a certain area or just to add some interest to the simulation.
Flow Types
Create Your Own Simulation
Importing OpenVDB in Blender10:50
OpenVDB is a new way of storing volumetric data and in this video I show you how to import that data in Blender 2.83
Volume to Mesh Modifier5:39
Viewport Render Animation3:40
Smoke Material8:21
In this video we learn how the material for the smoke works in the node editor.
Fire Material8:04
The fire material is pretty cool and you can create some interest colors and in this video I show you how it works.
Advanced Volume Settings Cycles7:34
Advanced Volume Settings EEVEE3:03
Creating Mist P15:22
Creating Mist P211:41
Realistic Fire in EEVEE13:44
In this video I will show you how to set up the material to render realistic fire in the Eevee render engine.

Setting up the Simulation9:31
This 4 part series is a tutorial on creating a very realistic campfire simulation. This first part is setting up the different values in the fire simulation to get it to look realistic.
Creating the Sparks5:30
Now that the fire simulation is done let's move onto creating the sparks using the particle system.
Spark and Fire Materials10:42
In this video we create a fancy particle material where it changes color while the particle rises.
Lighting & Rendering1:54
Finally we move onto setting up the lighting and rendering out an animation of fire with sparks in Blender!

Animating the Flow Object6:00
Starting out this tutorial we will be adding the objects and animating the sphere moving around inside the collision object.
Simulating the Smoke6:06
Now that the animation is set up, in this video we go through adding collision to the icosphere and simulation the smoke.
Adding the Glowing Material9:33
In this video we create the glowing smoke material and add some glare in the compositor.
Sequencing the Render9:10
In this video we finalize the course and sequence out the glowing smoke simulation.

Requirements

It is recommended that you have a little bit of prior experience with Blender 3D
It is recommended that you have a 3 button mouse but it is not required

Description

Hello everyone and welcome to the Fire & Smoke Simulation Masterclass in Blender! This course is for anyone wanting to learn about how to create realistic fire or smoke in Blender 4.5.

It's specifically designed to take you from being a complete beginner to being able to create any type of simulation you want on your own. Starting out we'll first understand what the fire and smoke simulation is and how to use it on a basic level. From there we'll be jump into the settings and cover each one with side by side visual comparisons so it’s easy to understand. After that we’ll learn about the shading workspace and how to create smoke and fire shaders in both EEVEE and Cycles. To really help everything sink in there are 5 full tutorials in which we use the smoke and fire simulation to create some interesting animations.

The first one is all about creating mist in Blender. We’ll go through the process of changing the smoke settings to get that misty effect, add a light white material and render it out. The second tutorial is how to properly render fire in EEVEE. We’ll walk through the EEVEE render engine talking about all the settings and values to get realistic results.

The third tutorial is a campfire scene. We will first add the campfire model which is included in this course, simulate the fire and smoke, add spark particles, create materials and adjust render settings to create the most realistic campfire possible.

You like explosions? Well for the fourth tutorial we will be simulating a missile crashing down and exploding. Step by step we will learn about curve animation, particle systems, simulating two types of smoke and much more.

Last but not least the final tutorial is all about creating a glowing smoke effect inside a glass sphere. We'll cover simulating smoke inside objects, creating a glowing materials, and rendering in EEVEE.

If you are interested in learning everything there is to know about the smoke and fire simulation and how it works in Blender, hit that enroll button and let's get started! I look forward to see what you create!

Thanks

Stephen

Who this course is for:

Blender users wanting to master fire and smoke simulations with ease.
3D artists aiming to add realistic effects to their animations and scenes.
Beginners curious about VFX and physics-based simulations in Blender.
Motion designers, game artists, or visual creators who want to level up their effects toolkit.

Complete Guide to the Fire & Smoke Simulation in Blender 3D

What you'll learn

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Course content

Introduction9 lectures • 58min

Domain Settings13 lectures • 56min

Flow Objects, Effectors & Materials13 lectures • 1hr 43min

Creating a Campfire Simulation4 lectures • 28min

Creating a Missile Explosion6 lectures • 38min

Glowing Smoke Simulation4 lectures • 31min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: