Image Synthesis of Flickering Scenes Including Simulated Flames

Producing realistic images and animations of flames is one of the most interesting subjects in the field of computer graphics. In a recent paper, we described a two-dimensional particle-based visual method of simulating flames. In the present paper, we first extend the simulation method, without losing any of its desirable features, in such a way that it functions in threedimensional space. We then present an efficient method of producing an image of the scene, including flames acting as volume light sources, which normally requires a large amount of computing time in the usual simulation approaches. Finally, we demonstrate the capabilities of our visual simulation method by showing sample images generated by it, which are excerpted from an animation.