Hi,

OK, I have a VFX shot I'm wanting to do where I have a small stream of sand trickle down and pile up on a small rock ledge. I'll have to model the ledge and there is already some sand in the video that I'll have to track.

The shelf tools seem straight forward for creating objects made of sand, but I haven't found any tutorials (I've watched the masterclass on Grains for Houdini 15) that show how to do something like this.

https://vimeo.com/109922382 [vimeo.com]

But without the movement. I just want a small trickling stream of sand that falls down on a ledge.

Any pointers to get me going in the right directions would be appreciate.

Jim

Spheres and particles > cannot see why you would need grains

Rob

Well, there you go.

Yeah, when I think ‘sand’ I think grain sim, not particles.
Now to figure out how to simulate sand using a particle system.

I found this on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/122282449 [vimeo.com]
From Dave Stewart in the comments.

“Go into your AutoDopNetwork and select the Pop Source node (right above the ‘grain_update’ node). In the Source tab, change ‘Remove Overlapping’ to ‘With Existing.’ Then in the Birth tab, right-click on ‘Impulse Activation’ and ‘Delete Channels’ or adjust the keyframes to emit for as long as you'd like.”

As you have so few “grains” it would make sense and now pops are in dops. Depending how close you get you could randomly instance sand grains on the points. !