I was looking for a plugin to make fire. I purchased Dante and what happened afterwords..plz read my story.
As a disappointed user of Dante...I have the right to express my problem to all EIAS users & forum readers.
I bought Dante3 and tried...very very unstable...many problems..many crash..some time I used to loose original project files...and emailed many times to Blair and even talked to him by phone..He never helped…
(lately I found out we will get reply from Northern only when we buy something.)
Bcz of these.... even I lost many projects.

Recently I purhased Fire from EI (orignally by Konkeptoine) and straitaway I could make fire without any hard steps.
The interface is simple and logic.

The best part of fire is “It is very stable”

My suggestion is before buying any plugins plz consult experienced users..(or from people who suffered by the plugins)

Plz check my old postings...that will reveal how I struggled..

Dante Problem: Not God only Blair can help!!!!!!!!!
http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/forums/viewthread/715/

Dante 3: Requested urgent help!
http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/forums/viewthread/713/

DANTE..STRANGE SLOW RENDER!!!
http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/forums/viewthread/711/

Northern Lignts 3D Plugin support problem
http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/forums/viewthread/677/

and more.............

Hi Dominic,
Sorry for your trouble with Dante.
How long ago have you used the plug-in?
What system do you have?
What version of EI are you running?
Are you on a MacTel?

Thanks Edgard

Thankx Edgard Participating in this thread.

I bought dante31 (UB version) for my Mac Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.2Ghz, RAM 6GB
Sys Leopard Mac OS X 10.5.4

EIAS 7.1

I heard from many people Dante is really unstable.
The funny thing, it was crashing after rendering app.100 frames.
(Plz check my thread for details: http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/forums/viewthread/715/)

Especially I think there is a problem with UB version with >2GB RAM System.
I talked to Blair about it by phone from Saudi arabia.
He asked me to send the crash report generated by system.
I did what he asked me.....
But no response…

I have to finish some projects which were waiting for deadlines..
Thank God...I tried Fire from EI (originally by Konkeptoine)..it solved my problem.
I feel fire is really very stable.

Dear Ed, we are ready to invest more money just to finish the projects in time.
Some time if the applications are unstable,...we will be disappointed...and ultimately unable to finish the projects...will bring disasters.

We respect valuable developers who make plugins & shaders.
However developer must understand our situations.

Hello again Dominic,
Sorry to hear these.
Can you try using real footage like Real Fire from Artbeats.It is way faster than using anyplug ins if you want to make some fire. Otherwise try to shoot it. Is not so complex and is faster than any plug in and looks more real

The thing is that it will cost you a few hundreds.
http://www.artbeats.com/collections/214?page=1

Have you render your project in segments? Like 90 frames than 91-190 etc, maybe is something with your model try to re importing again. Start from the basics and keep your patience. I am talking cause it has happened to me than i sit down again and it works like magic.

Dear Ed
Thankx for your deep concern.

With Fire plugin I have already achieved what I wanted to have...without any hard work.
Ed, this fire plug can make simple fires and flames easily. No need complex setup.

I love dante’s fire..it is really dense, smoky....more realistic...but what to do…
My project is very complex ...kind of petrolium processing facility...with more than 50,000,000 polys…

Also I dont have much idea how can I use a video footage with a moving 3D scene.
I guess if it is generated it may have more control than a video clip.

plz check the link.

http://www.deevista.com/manifa/sep/cpf_flare.mov

(I am just showing only a part of the animation to show how the flame works)

Dominic,
You can use several planes or a cylinder and applied the video clip as a map.
But these is a typical situation for Dante. what i am looking at is not very realistic so a video footage should make the trick also it will render faster than a fire simulation.

You could also applied the video clip to a flame kind of shape and deformed along with a linear wave. There are several things that can be done without the need of any plug ins. Specially for these type of shot. The main thing is to get the idea that there is fire exhausting from the pipe.

You could also use smokers combined with a fractal noise. You could also use the imagelounge plug in from after effects to render your fire and use it as a map for your flame shape in EI.  The example is the fire tutorial form EI CD. But that is using fractal noise and smokers what i am saying will look more realistic.

The fire looks very fake if you ask me.Natural things lok very fake if they are not done with real footage or plugins that works. Sadly Dante doesnt work , try to render out the flames without the whole refinery. Than composite in After Effects.Dnt know what other solution to find.

Hope it helped

Thankx again ED,

I will try all your options.

BUt i have seen several examples of Dantes gallery they look like they could be useful in these project is perfect,try to render your Dante along and than composite into AE. I donot know probably too many polys.

Hi Dominic,
When I need a 3D particle heavy effect, I usually set it up with the rest of my scene (e.g. a fly over across a river terrain, then a zoom in into a waterfall). Then I turn off all the other terrain geometry and only leave the particle emitters on. I render that as a separate pass. Then I switch off all particle elements and render the rest of the scene. Composite in After Effects.

You may also want to consider Particle Illusion (PI). It’s a 2D effect but I’ve used it in 3D projects before and it looks great. It’s also fast and very flexible for getting different looks. Other EIAS users on the forums also have commented on using PI with EIAS successfully.

Hope things work out.

Thankx to ED & Aziz.

First of all to ED…
About Dante Samples even I am impressed. They are great.
My only complaint none of the sample files works with latest UB version.
You are unable to open them, bcz dante plugin used in the tutorial & Uber shape plugin not compatible to UB & EIAS 7.0
Plz check my another thread: http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/forums/viewthread/837/

Aziz, I will try your options too.  Thankx

Hi Dominic,

i believe if you remove the plug-ins from the sample folder and try and launch the project, there will be a box popping up that asks for you to find them. if you choose the plug-ins that do work with your version of EIAS it should load those into the project when it opens.

i think that will work for you.

Hi Monday
I followed your suggestions.
I tried with the famous Burning Tire project.
The file opens....however the plugin is just sitting idle without producing smoke or fire.

is it missing a data file maybe?

honestly, i’ve never been able to get dante to do anything at all. most of my problems have been with slaves rendering out particles in different positions for each slave, so they jump around randomly when you watch the final movie...interesting effect, but not what i actually needed…

i’ve given up on it.

hope for the best

monday1313 - 23 September 2008 02:53 AM

is it missing a data file maybe?

If I remember correctly, the plug-ins simply aren’t backward compatible. You can’t upgrade projects, which means, yes, the sample files do not work.

I will be sure to ask if there is something we can do about this,
Ian

Dear Ian, plz do something…
I am desperate....

Now, I am worrying for something else too......when V8 is introduced ...we may face same problem..  we have to upgrade all plug-ins… otherwise all our investment and time will be wasted…
If the plugin developers are not provided tutorial ...atleast EITG team can develop tutorial to support users.
This is the biggest threat in software market if no proper support...then no business…