Shape smoke and fire inside Blender

I made Fumaris so I could try changes to smoke and fire directly in Blender. Move an emitter, adjust the wind, or change the combustion settings while the preview runs and watch the effect develop.

Use meshes, particles, or Geometry Nodes as sources. Once the motion works, bake an OpenVDB sequence for Blender's volume materials and final rendering.

Watch the current showcase

Runs on Windows, Linux and Apple Silicon Mac with Blender 5.2+. Full requirements and known limitations are listed further down.

Move the emitter while the smoke keeps running

Try different source positions in the live preview and watch the plume respond.

Recorded in Blender, with the original playback timing retained. Enable Bake on Preview to capture a preview run as OpenVDB, or use Bake for a separate final run.

Take the effect into your final render

Bake an OpenVDB sequence, then use Blender's volume materials and lighting to finish the shot.

A separate finished example, shown as a short loop. This is a different scene from the preview above. View a still.

New in 1.3.1

Choose the supported Simulation GPU for new Preview and Bake jobs. Save Preferences to persist the UUID-based choice. A missing selected GPU reports an error instead of silently switching devices.

Use Timeline follows the scene range with optional warmup. New domains start with it enabled; older domains retain their explicit range. New Slot preserves earlier bakes, Protect locks a slot against Bake/Delete, and overwrite/delete actions ask first.

Preview Flame Light adds warm light from flames into nearby smoke. Light Scattering fills shadowed billows. Both affect only the interactive preview; final VDB materials remain under your control.

Install the 1.3.1 ZIP for your platform, stop simulations and restart Blender. Release notes and SHA256 checksums are included. Matching GPL source. Earlier downloads and the 1.2.0 demo ZIP remain available. Try the free cached explosion demo.

Previous update: 1.3.0

Air Margin and a wider pressure solve help large plumes roll up and keep fast smoke edges clean. Move With Object lets a simulation travel and turn with a vehicle, with optional Carry Air. Source operations, effector field masks, OpenVDB sequences and Scene Occlusion give you more control.

The solver now uses one path with fewer switches. Small Sparse Blocks is off by default and remains under Advanced. Scenes from earlier versions simulate differently: check capacity and re-bake when changing versions. This release also fixes VDB placement and velocity export, empty VDB sequence frames, preview restarts when changing Move With Object, and occlusion refreshes.

Install the 1.3.0 ZIP for your platform and restart Blender. Full release notes and checksums accompany the downloads. The four demo scenes still use the existing 1.2.0 demo ZIP.

Previous update: 1.2.0

Now includes a native Apple Silicon Mac download, alongside Windows and Linux. The Mac package runs GPU simulation through Metal using bundled MoltenVK; no separate runtime installation is needed.

• Quick Setup effects create a ready-to-run domain and emitter.
• Bake on Preview records OpenVDB frames during interactive playback and imports them when paused or stopped.
• Improved sparse-capacity and detail-memory warnings make clipping and limits easier to diagnose.
• Four updated demo scenes are included as a separate download.

Main Features

• Raymarched GPU smoke and fire preview inside Blender
• Live camera rerendering without advancing the simulation
• Shared smoke color, density, and fire controls for preview and final material
• Burn/temperature Blackbody fire shading that can be tuned without rebaking
• Optional self-shadowing in the live volume preview
• Pause the simulation and inspect its volume from another angle
• Preview exposure, filmic tone mapping, and light azimuth/elevation controls
• Optional smoke detail/upres with an explicit memory budget
• Final OpenVDB sequences for Blender's normal volume workflow
• Geometry Nodes point attributes for radius, velocity, smoke, temperature, fuel, burn, divergence, coupling, and masks
• Evaluated Geometry Nodes meshes and experimental volume sources
• Mesh, sphere, box, particle-system, and OpenVDB emitters
• Animated transforms, deforming meshes, and keyframed participant settings
• Mesh, sphere, and box colliders with velocity influence
• Force, wind, vortex, and turbulence effectors with noise and falloff
• Outflows for removing smoke and combustion channels
• Separate cache slots for preserving multiple simulations
• Standard density plus temperature, fuel, burn, and velocity VDB grids
• Per-bake time, peak system RAM, and peak VRAM reporting
• Adjustable simulation preview resolution, viewport scale, and ray steps

What You Receive

• Separate Blender extension ZIPs for Windows, Linux and Apple Silicon Mac
• The complete Fumaris customer documentation inside the extension
• Readable GPL Python integration source
• The native simulation runtime and required platform libraries
• License overview, commercial runtime terms, and dependency notices
• A separate ZIP containing four updated demo scenes

All three platform downloads are included. Choose the ZIP matching the computer running Blender; each package is platform-specific.

Requirements And Compatibility

• Blender 5.2+ on Windows/Linux; Blender 5.2+ on Mac
• Windows x64, Linux x64 (glibc 2.35+), or Apple Silicon Mac (macOS 26+)
• A Vulkan-capable GPU with a current driver on Windows/Linux; Apple GPU through Metal on Mac
• GPU memory appropriate for the chosen simulation resolution
• Local writable storage for OpenVDB caches

Fumaris has been tested on NVIDIA GPUs under Windows and Linux and Intel ArcGPUs under Windows and Linux. The Mac package has been tested on a Mac mini M4 with 16 GB unified memory. Hardware coverage is still growing; check the requirements for your configuration.

AMD GPUs are not officially tested yet because I don't have one to test on. Fumaris uses the same vendor-agnostic Vulkan path that runs on NVIDIA and Intel, and I haven't had a report of it failing on AMD. Hardware and driver combinations vary, so even tested GPU families may reveal device-specific issues. Intel Macs are unsupported. Mac memory is shared with Blender and the OS; start with modest resolution and detail limits.

GPU pipelines compile on first use of each feature. Driver caches can speed up later runs.

Known Limitations

• Geometry Nodes Volume emission is experimental.
• Interactive preview is temporary unless Bake on Preview is enabled before playback.
• Live preview uses simplified shading. Scene Occlusion uses viewport depth to hide smoke behind solid Blender objects; final VDB rendering uses Blender materials and lighting.
• A stopped bake imports completed frames but cannot resume solver state.
• One Fumaris preview or bake can run at a time.
• Colliders are practical Flow collision emitters, not mathematically sealed pressure boundaries; very fast smoke can leak through thin geometry.
• High resolutions, large sparse capacities, very large point clouds, and extra VDB channels can exhaust GPU or system memory.
• Results do not match Mantaflow parameter-for-parameter.
• Intel Macs are unsupported. Mac memory is shared with Blender and the OS; start with modest resolution and detail limits.

Installation

1. Download the Fumaris ZIP for your operating system. Do not extract it.
2. Open Edit > Preferences > Extensions in Blender.
3. Open the upper-right menu and choose Install from Disk.
4. Select the ZIP and enable Fumaris if prompted.
5. Select an object and open Physics Properties > Fumaris.

Quick Start

1. Select an object and open Physics Properties > Fumaris.
2. Choose a Quick Setup effect to create a domain and source, or set up your own domain and emitter collection.
3. Press Play for interactive feedback. Enable Bake on Preview first if you want to keep the preview as OpenVDB frames.
4. For a separate final run, configure Output and press Bake.

The domain object stores settings; it is not a hard Mantaflow-style boundingbox. Flow allocates its sparse grid around active smoke.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this a Mantaflow replacement?

Fumaris covers the core smoke/fire workflow with a much more interactive GPUpreview and OpenVDB output, but it is a different solver with differentparameters and tradeoffs. Evaluate the demo based on the effects and workflowyou need rather than expecting one-to-one settings.

Does Preview create a final cache?

It can. Enable Bake on Preview before playback to record OpenVDB frames in the background; pausing or stopping imports the recorded sequence. Without that option, preview is temporary. A regular Bake creates a separate OpenVDB sequence.

Why is Bake slower than Preview?

Bake reads full volume grids back from the GPU, converts NanoVDB data toOpenVDB, and writes it to disk. Volume preview transfers only a viewport-sized image.

Can Geometry Nodes control each point?

Yes. Named point attributes can control position, radius, velocity, smoke,temperature, fuel, burn, divergence, channel coupling, and masking. Empty pointclouds are valid.

Can I stop and resume a bake?

Stop imports every valid frame already written, but Flow's complete statecannot currently be serialized. The next bake starts from the beginning.

Can I use the output commercially?

Yes. Your renders, animations, and generated simulation caches remain yourcontent, subject to the rights attached to your input assets.

Where can I get help?

Reply to the purchase receipt or use the support contact on the storefront.Include the Fumaris and Blender versions, operating system, GPU, driver,console output, reproduction steps, and the smallest .blend that shows theproblem.

Support And Refunds

Buying Fumaris should not mean gambling on basic compatibility. Contact support within 14 days if Fumaris cannot initialize,preview, or bake on a listed supported configuration after normal driverand troubleshooting steps. I will first try to diagnose or hotfix the problem;if it cannot be resolved reasonably, a refund will be considered.

Refunds are also considered for duplicate purchases or a materially inaccurateproduct claim. Aesthetic preference, expected differences from another solver,insufficient hardware memory, unsupported hardware or operating systems, and modified package filesare not normally refundable. Storefront rules and mandatory consumer rightstake precedence.

License And Source

The Blender Python integration is GPL-3.0-or-later. Matching Python source is included in the ZIP. The source repository is https://github.com/Michael-Venous/fumaris.

Original Fumaris native bridge code uses the included Commercial RuntimeLicense. Third-party components retain their included licenses. Fumaris is notaffiliated with or endorsed by Blender Foundation, NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, orDassault Systemes.

Benchmark Disclosure

Published timings are wall-clock captures on the hardware named in the video.Mantaflow comparisons match frame range and visual intent as closely aspractical, but the solvers and parameter systems are different. Results varywith the scene, active sparse volume, output channels, storage, GPU, and driver.