Hi everyone,

I’m new to Houdini (and I’m Brazilian, so I apologize in advance if my English isn’t perfect).

I’m trying to recreate a scene similar to Dune, where they use the “Thumper” to call the sandworms. Specifically, I’d like to simulate the pulse it creates in the sand when it hits the ground.

As a beginner, I’m not really sure where to start. I was wondering if this could be done using Pyro, but I’m not confident that’s the right approach, and I’m a bit lost on how to achieve this effect.

Could anyone point me in the right direction, or suggest tutorials, references, or techniques that could help me with this kind of simulation?

I’d like to achieve something similar to the first example, or the one at 0:17.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-rbSwTv6tM [www.youtube.com]

Thanks a lot in advance!

You could start with the fact that the surface is smoothed with each impact. And the particles are given a slight vertical velocity and a high horizontal velocity. Plus, there's motion blur.