Nuno Álvares

Hello everyone. I was watching this movie and i was thinking on how could i replicate such effect. I know i can't position each coin individually, and trying to simulate this as individual rigid bodies would take forever. How, and in which software can i achieve this kind of results? Any specific techniques? I think the main goal would be to have a particle emmiter that could copy geometry, fill that with proxy low-res geometry for collision detection and a differente geometry for visualization. Can i get it without having to script anything? I'm kind of noob with this… Thanks a lot.

Inspiration video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5u8e5v15Wo [youtube.com]

Cheers.