Pyro Simulation for Engine Combustion in Cinema 4D
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Hello,
thank you very much for your response!
It's a Horch 8 Fiedler straight-eight engine.
At the moment I’m doing everything with Pyro.
There is a particle system for the fresh gas as it flows through the intake pipe. This is currently animated using a spline and a field force.
The next particle system is an emitter that blows fresh air into the chamber as soon as the fresh gas from the previous particle system arrives there (which I can’t figure out, since the smoke always stops moving at a certain point).
The next particle system is the explosion inside the chamber.
After that, there is a particle system that imitates the extraction of the burned residues. The emitter is placed directly at the outlet of the chamber and “blows” into the exhaust pipe. The smoke then follows a spline again, animated with a field force.
And then there is another emitter at the exhaust.The timing of when everything starts is all animated manually with keyframes.
Overall, it simply doesn’t look good yet, and many elements don’t fit together convincingly.
I’m also missing a proper transition between the explosion inside the chamber and the extraction of the residues. I had the idea of animating the color of the fresh-gas emitter, but it doesn’t change smoothly. Instead, it switches abruptly within a single frame.It’s probably all far too complicated on my side.
Is there a way for me to send you the scene?
Nevertheless, I really appreciate your help and best regards,
Marijke -
Thank you very much, Marijke.
I think the separation into several parts is a good idea.
Which might also allow for the reuse of setups for each of the eight cylinders.
I’m sure you have made up your mind on how to present the work, but I'm not clear how the video will show it (the engine block transparent and the full pipeline of gas and fumes as a 3D inside, or the block cut in half, which would also make sense with a straight engine)
The key decision would be to render each part of the four strokes out and composite them, while perhaps blending or using masks to get the best effect.
Particels can be used as Pyro, perhaps creating an easier way to direct Pyro.
Another pointer would be, even given the lower rpm of these older engines, the speed at which all of that happens is not low, meaning that most realistic representations would use a lot of motion blur, making everything perhaps even easier, while applied in post.
One "hack" is the Destructor Setting, avoiding the collision calculation and using the outsed of the Cylinder as Destructor. Perhaps worth a consideration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-mARL7JNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u22q06-7oXAAs a side note, in the late '90s we had a Rally (Kitzbühl) with the collection of the EFA Automuseum/Amarang cars, and I think we had a Horch 8 in the mix, but I haven’t seen the engine back then.
If you could just copy one cylinder, so I can get the size, etc. The inside polygons where the explosion will sit, and the head with the valve openings, no valves needed. I will replace them here, then share as C4D. I hope that is comfortable for you.
All the best
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P.S.: Perhaps this is a good enough sketch to get some feedback about your target.
My personal take:
Theoretical there is a spark, then an explosion (all white, HDRI screen 4000+ Nits white
), and then nothing that an eye could perceive, as it fights with the after image and anything else is too weak to cut through. Before we even know it, there is the next one.
So, I assume the stylized idea of it is more what one would expect, hence some rough texture, something that makes us feel that flames expand, and is slowed down to explore.CV4_2026_drs_26_PYcl_01.c4d
Preview
https://projectfiles.maxon.net/Cineversity_Forum_Support/2026_Clips_DRS/20260120_CV4_2026_drs_26_PYcl_01.mp4 -
Hello,
I’m so grateful that you’re helping me!
At the moment, the plan is to cut the engine at certain points to provide a view into the interior. However, making parts of it transparent also sounds like a very good idea. I’ll experiment a bit and see what looks better.
Rendering the four strokes separately also sounds like a reasonable approach to me. Getting everything to work together convincingly all at once will probably be much more difficult.
Thanks again for the links and the C4D file, and best regards,
Marijke -
Hi Marijke,
Thank you very much for the feedback.
As mentioned, I just need a single geometry defining the Cylinder, which should be a small file. Hence, I expected a c4D smaller 1MB that can be attached here.
I try not to be complicated here, sorry if that looks that way.
For security reasons, we have limitations to download only from Dropbox, Google, Apple, Adobe, or Wetransfer, please upload the file to one of these cloud services uncompressed.All the best
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Hello,
All right, here is a Dropbox folder with the scene:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/j4k2tvxwtd5pbs4wca9f6/AMYCrdkTHRA_GBEAzcISjNE?rlkey=z7uk27bn84yfy53ti5kzzepih&st=9fknrmfg&dl=0Thank you and best regards,
Marijke -
Hi Marijke,
Thank you very much, and sorry for the extra work.
I got the file and I will have a look in the morning into it.
(Midnight here)Cheers
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Hello,
that’s no problem at all! I’m just happy that someone is helping me.
Best regards,
Marijke -
Thank you, Marijke,
Here is an example for the 3rd stroke (explosion) and a sketch for particles forth stroke.
It is only a small part of the whole, just to keep the focus on the exploration.
Files:
https://projectfiles.maxon.net/Cineversity_Forum_Support/2026_PROJECTS_DRS/20260122_CV4_2026_drs_26_PYth-ex_01.zip
Render this file.
In this file I used one of your valves. Please advice if that was OK, if not I can replace it.I hope that has some usable ideas, or at least something that starts a discussion about where you want to go with the H8 engine.
I believe that given that model to ten artists, you will get ten different results, and perhaps all are interesting. Please let me know.The exhaust fumes inside the muffler are surely pretty fast, and I would expect to see only a gas-like darkening in the tubes. Outside of it, it might culminate in little clouds.
Here is one idea to produce tiny “vdb” files that could be used.
https://youtu.be/6YVd6edVxps?si=5xwZBy8Oltsk-3hY&t=708Enjoy
