Hi everyone…this is probably a really old question, but i need some help creating a realistic dust trail coming off the rear wheel of a bike driving through the desert. I have a source on the wheel, and a POP network which birthing all the particles, and it looks really good as far as the particles are concerned, but now how do i make it look like a really cool dust cloud?? Any help asap would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Penguin :shock:

Use the image3d technique. This is a way of rendering volumetrics like clouds using an atmospheric object after generating your i3d voxel files.

There are some good video tutorials
http://sidefx.vislab.usyd.edu.au/houdini_video/by_topic/effects/index.html [sidefx.vislab.usyd.edu.au]
and scroll down to the bottom and look for the two videos on image3d

Also search this forum and odforce's forum looking for image3d or i3d.


There are other techniques for rendering smoke but i3d gives you nice lit clouds quickly.

-jeff

I'vehad a look at that volumetric tutorial, but it jsut seems to draw a big cloud thing looking like a big ball of cotton wool…i need like a fine dust trial coming off the tyre. I I really have no idea what i'm doing with Vex clouds etcetc… :?

That tutorial will show you how to use the I3d technique. Once you figure that out….you can create almost any volumetric effect, including your fine dust trail. Just do a lot of experimentation, playing with your density of particles (lots of particles or few particles). From my experience with I3d, the more particles in the sim, the denser the volumetric effect. And of course with fewer particles the less dense the volumetric effect.

Hope this helps.

-jon

Awesome…cheers for shedding some light.

Cheers guys…followed that tutorial, adjusted things for my animation, and eventually got it looking sooo awesome!!

Thanks again!