Blender Lava Lamp

I started with a cylinder and extruded out a hollow shape. A middle section was then cut out and made thicker for the glass. The remaining upper and lower sections are turned metallic. Lava is made using metaballs with lots of trial and error to get the correct size and viscosity. Metaballs have mass so in order to keep them afloat I used wind on top and below the glass area. Real lava lamps work by heating up the “lava” causing it to rise and letting it cool at the top causing it to fall gently. For this effect I added two wind turbines. The first is below in the heating area with a strong force to make the lava rise and keep it afloat. The second is above the glass in the cooling area with a lesser force to push it back down.

To further sell the illusion and randomize movement, two turbulent areas were added. The metaball's origin points were used as collision points with an invisible wireframe to keep the lava from clipping outside the glass. The whole setup can be seen on slide two. I used the same ideas from the donut tutorial to set up lighting, rendering, and make the final video. The entire composition can be seen on slide three.