Material animating Flame 2 by entering a negative value in the Y material velocity feild produces a nice simulation of fire. The problem is that it gradually loses detail during the animation until it is just a few specks of a near white yellow. Is there a method that would maintain the initial quality of the simulation through the entire animation? My search of the tutorials and archives was unsuccessful. Thank You

could you show an example? I dont really understand what you mean by "loses detail...". Some images are saying more than thousand words!

Thank you Wabe for your kind reply. I hope the enclosed jpeg will help. It is a spherical material animation of Flame 2. Varying the Y material velocity or the length and frame rate yields the same results. I am certainly overlooking what is obvious to you. Thank you again for you assistance.

to understand it - is the problem that it should be a loop? Or is it that over time all the semi-transparent parts become completly transparent and the result looks not soft? By the way, from start to midway it looks interesting! Would it be a solution to simply make the duration of the flame animation so long that you do not end in the status where there is still enough detail? That is just a workaround, but maybe a solution. To be honest, i have never done this type of material animation. I only wanted to help you making your problem more clear for others. Hope there is a solution, Walther

May be, with animated group of animated spheres, with 'universe' material coordinates (not 'objet' coordinates)?

It looks to me like you are using a linear manipulation of a single variable. Perhaps if you changed both the frequencey and direction of the variable change it would improve? For example. Instead of going from y=5 to y=1 over the course of your animation, you could increase the keyframes and go with something like y=5, y=3, y=6, y=4 so that your value is shrinking and growing.

Thank you for your replies. It's amazing how my energy levels quadrupled when I realized that the attention of such Vue user Luminaries were focused on my problem! The following procedure seems to cause the Sphere primitive Flame2 material animation to play in a servicable manner. 1. Display the Timeline and leave its' default settings at 00:00:00-00. 2. In this initial frame select the Sphere. 3. In "Object Properties" panel select/click on the image of the Sphere. 4. The "Material Editor" should now be visible. Click on its' image of the Sphere, 5. The "Please select a material" window should appear. Select "Special Effects" from its' "Available collections". Navigate to and select/click on "Flame2". 4. Click "Yes" to the pop up query,"Would you like the material to become animated?" 5. Under the "Effects" tab in the "Y" field of "Velocity of material animation" enter a negative value (ex.-12.0). 6. Close the "Material Editor". Position, scale and otherwise adjust the Sphere and optimize the lighting as needed. 7. In the Timeline move the "length of current time" slider to the desired duration of animation(ex.4.0). 8. In the Timeline click the "End of animation" key. 9. In this the last frame of the animation select the Sphere and using an arrow key (ex.up) nudge the Sphere once. Using the opposite arrow key (ex.down) nudge the Sphere once more returning it to its' original position. I assume that this nudging sets a keyframe that fixates the initial material animation settings of frame 0 for the rest of the frames. 10. Set the desired render quality, size, framerate, ect. of the animation and render. I apologize for my rudimentory understanding of this technology. I'm sure I've made a simple process overly complicated and did not provide a comprehensive solution to all scenarios. The Vue scientist state that the true power of Vue is its' ability to manipulate procedural values. I am begining to understand and appreciate what they mean. Thank you all once more for generously expending the time to offer your help to a beginner.

Thats' works fine. Thanks to you robnma !

Attached Link: http://www.belino.net/wips/flames.php3

As that said, that works! So, I share a wip at http://www.belino.net/wips/flames.php3 (quick Time 6). With mover I gave Z few spins to streched spheres. Different highs. Before, the spheres were gouped. This group of sphere moves too (pans for 'little wind'). You'll see The lava texture moves (its a flat sphere): for material the same way like flames was used (-5 for Y). Thanks again, robnma.

robnma; Excellent little tutorial there. And a nice WIP, Philippe! And another bookmark and html file into the ol tricks folder.... :) This is actually something I am gonna need in a bit, once I get the Poser animation banged back into a useable form...