Creating a flame in the fireplace for the interior.

How to quickly and beautifully create a flame for an interior fireplace?

Step 1. Create a fireplace for the flame test.

Create a Box object and convert it to Editable Poly. Select the faces and use the Connect command to create additional faces for the main place for the flame. Using the Extrude command place the polygon inside the box. The test fireplace is now ready.

Step 2. Create the texture of the flame in Photoshop.
If you don't have the ability to create textures in Photoshop you can find ready-made textures or create them directly in 3D Max. We will show you both the first and the second way.
First way: Open the already found texture of the flames in Photoshop. Next, use the channels to select the brightest channel, for example, this will be the red channel. Next, save the black and white texture in a separate file.

The second way: Load the flame texture as a Corona Bitmap in the Material Editor. Then attach the Color Correction Map and adjust the brightness and contrast so you get a black-and-white picture.

Step 3: Create the flame in the fireplace.
In 3d max you need to create a Plane with a good number of segments, for example, 16x16. Then in the Material Editor create a Corona light material and assign it to the Plane. We attach a Diffuse card to the Corona light material - a colored version of the flame texture. And add a black and white version of the flame texture to the Opacity slot. Be sure to uncheck the Emit light and Generaitic caustics checkboxes in the settings. Place Plane inside the fireplace.

You should be able to stop here. But you can do the following steps for better results.

Step 4: Improve the flame.

On the Plane object assign the Edit poly modifier. Divide the polygons into three parts, and separate them from each other with the Detatch command. Assign the Noise modifier to all three parts of the flame. Then rotate each of the parts slightly differently to make the flames look more realistic. You can additionally create copies of the flames and mirror them, placing them backwards or forwards, to your liking. Look at the flame from different angles to see if there are any ugly edges or blank spots that shouldn't be there. Once you like the flame you've created, merge all the pieces into one object again, for easy handling.