Real-time rendering of flames on arbitrary deformable objects

This paper proposes a new real-time algorithm to generate visually plausible flames on arbitrary deformable objects. In order to avoid the time-consuming computation of physical fields, the main idea of our algorithm is to build an approximate distance field based on the object’s surface. And then the distance field is sampled and the distance samples are employed to fetch values from a color map which is precomputed according to physical methods. In order to simulate the dynamic flames by static distance field, simplex noise is used to disturb the sampling process. Our algorithm is also capable of handling the interaction between the flames and external factors such as wind. In order to achieve such a goal, two approximate distance fields are built to represent the inner flames and the outer flames respectively, which are combined together to accomplish the interaction. The experimental results show that our algorithm can produce visually plausible and user controllable flames on arbitrary deformable objects in real-time.