hey this is Chris plush from CG masters
and in this tutorial I'm going to show
you how to quickly and easily make this
dust in the wind
type special effect
now if you want to follow along this is
a step-by-step tutorial and you can find
the start file for it in the description
underneath the video but it's also one
of those tutorials you can just watch
straight through without actually
following along and you'll get a good
idea of how things are done. Now the
first thing I'm going to do is go over
to the render buttons and make sure I
set the frame rate to 60 frames a second.
I want to animate this at a higher frame
rate because when I see those dust
particles flying off the column I want
that I want them to have that ultra
smooth flow that you get from a higher
frame rate and now what we're gonna do
is start things off by subtracting
pieces of the column from top to bottom
so let me press numpad 1 for front view
numpad 5 for orthographic view now
our cursor should be centered at the
bottom center of the column. If it's not
I'll press shift + S and choose "Cursor
to Center" and I'll center into the world
and now let's press Shift + A and add a
mesh cube. Let me press tab go into edit
mode, with all the vertices selected I'll
press G and then Z and hold ctrl and
move that up one blender unit and now
let's press the period key to scale away
from the 3d cursor and now I'll press S
to scale it up so that it's a little bit
bigger than the column and I'll
left-click to keep it there. And now I'll
press S and then Z and scale it all the
way up until it's a little bit taller
than the column and left click there. Now
what we're gonna do is animate this box
from top to bottom and we're gonna use a
boolean modifier to subtract from the
column as this box is moving down and
over it but we don't actually want to
render this box so let's take care of
that right now I'm gonna go in my
outliner window which I have tucked away
up there and the cube is selected so I'm gonna click on the camera icon
there to turn off render visibility, so
this won't actually render in the final
product but we can still use it for the
boolean modifier. So let me press tab to
get out of edit mode now and let's press
shift + D to duplicate this and then
right click to keep it in place then
press tab to go into edit mode press A
to deselect then press B and left click
and drag over those vertices. Now press G
and then Z and we'll bring it all the
way down here just to make a small
sliver like that and I'll explain what
this is for in a minute.
Let's press tab to get out of edit mode
and now what we're gonna do is parent
this to the bigger box so hold shift
right click on the bigger box then press
ctrl + P
and parent to object, and just so we
don't get confused later on let's name
these things I'm gonna press the N key
for the right side toolbar and let's
select the bigger cube here and we'll
rename this to "big box" and select that
small sliver down there and we'll rename
this to "sliver" now let's select big box
and we can start animating this so let
me press G and then Z I'll move that all
the way up until it's just above the
column like that and since we parented
the sliver with it, it's coming along for
the ride. Now we're gonna start animating, I don't want it to start animating
at frame 0, I want there to be a couple
of seconds of nothing and then it comes
down on the column so let's move ahead
to frame 50 and then with that big box
selected I'll press the i key to insert
a keyframe and I'll insert the location.
Now let's move ahead to frame 450
that'll be the last frame of the visible
column or maybe a couple frames after
now let's press G and then Z move that
column all the way down to right there
let's make sure the sliver is beneath
the column, which it is, and let's make
sure it encompasses the whole thing,
which it does, so with that there let's
press the i key again and insert a
location keyframe there. So let me go
back to frame 0 and I'll press Alt + A
to play the animation and we'll see what
it looks like. So this will be
subtracting from the column as it goes
all the way down and then right about
there the entire column is completely
gone, cool, it looks like we'll only need
about 600 frames for this animation so
let me type that into the End frame down
there. Now if we go into shaded view by
pressing Z you can see that these are
solid shaded and that's kind of
obstructive since we don't actually need
to see them. So what I'm gonna do is go
over to the object buttons here and
where's it at, right here, the maximum
draw type option, let's change that to
wire and then let's select the sliver
object and we'll do the same thing we'll
change that to wire as well. Now let's
select the column object and let's go
over to the modifier buttons, actually
let's press the N key over the 3d view,
get rid of that toolbar, and over in the
modifiers click add modifier and add a
boolean modifier. Let's
the operation to difference, and in the
object field choose big box. Now let's
press Alton a over the 3d view and let's
see how that looks and there we go, we're
off to a good start. It's subtract that all
the way down until it's completely gone,
and now we just need something at the
top of that column as it goes down in
order to use to create a particle system.
So let's press Shift + D to duplicate
the column and then right click to keep
it in place. Let's change the operation
over here to intersect and let's change
the target object to sliver.Now you can
see that column has actually disappeared,
that column will only be visible in the
space where our sliver object is, so if I
press Alt + A now to see the animation
you can see just a sliver of that
duplicate column is appearing right in
that space right there. We're going to
use that sliver we just made and have
particle Z met from that. Now let's go
over to the particle buttons and click
on new to create a new particle system.
Let's increase the number of particles
to 10,000 and let's see what we got so
far, let's press Alt + A, and some
particles are shooting out from the
origin then they start shooting out from
the top when it actually starts coming
down. I don't think it's fully paying
attention to the modifier stack yet
because we have to enable "use modifier
stack"
that'll make it so it actually performs
the operations in the modifier stack in
our case the boolean operation, and then
it uses that result to actually add the
particle system and we also have to
change the start frame. So let me press
numpad 1 for front view, let me zoom in
to the top here, I want the start frame
which means that when the particles
begin spawning I want that to be right
when our sliver object cuts into the
column the first time so I'm gonna press
the right arrow on the keyboard and I'll
just hold that in until it starts
animating downward and so our first
frame as you can see down here at the
bottom left is 77 so I'll change the
start frame to 77 and while we're at it
we might as well plug in the end number,
so I'm gonna I'm gonna hold shift and
press the up arrow and I'll go down 10
frames at a time and I'll use the right
arrow and see when the last cut on the
column happens. So it happens at
frame 433 so let me type in 433 as the
end frame, and let me type in 0 and go
back to the start. When you're working
with particle simulations in order to
rerun that simulation properly you have
to go back to when the simulation begins
in order for it to be recalculated right
and now let's press Alt + A and see what
happens now. There we go, okay, now we're
getting somewhere.
Now instead of actually going back to
frame 0 all the time to rerun the
simulation we can actually bake the
simulation with the cache panel over
here, there's some options to do that, but
we're not actually finished creating the
particle simulation yet, and with such a
simple simulation like this I don't
really think it's necessary to bake it
anyway.
So, where we at now, what was the problem
we need to fix, oh right, the particles
are falling pretty pretty darn fast so
let's fix that by turning down the
gravity influence on it. So I'm gonna
scroll down to the bottom panel here for
field weights and I'll turn gravity down
to .005, you can put it
at 0 if you want but I I would like
to see these particles start floating
downward after they're in the air while
all right now let's hover over the 3d
view and press Alt + A from frame zero
and see what we got, all right
that's uh, different, just need to fix a
few things now let's change the lifetime
up to 200 so the particles don't die as
fast and they're also being emitted in
different directions initially. So they
have an initial velocity so let's head
over to the velocity panel here and
we'll change the normal velocity down to
0. So now they should just be added in
and then start gently following to the
ground because of that
tiny bit of gravity we left in and after
200 frames each particle spawned starts
disappearing. Alright that's looking good. Now let's actually create the dust
particle for the particle system so me
pressing on pad 7 for top view and
let me zoom into the middle of the
column there. Let's press Shift + A and
we'll add in a mesh cone. Let's press the
T key immediately after that and go down
to the operators panel down here and
let's change the number of vertices for
the cone down to 3 and then press T
to get rid of that. So here we have a bit
of a pyramid
and let's press numpad 1 for front
view, press tab to go into edit mode and
with all the vertices selected I'll
press S and then Z and scale that down
so it's kind of proportional. So this is
our dust particle. Now it only has a
couple of faces because we're gonna be
adding thousands and thousands of these
so we don't want it to slow things down
too much but I did want to have
something that had faces because as this
rotates in the air it's gonna be
catching the light differently and
reflecting it back toward the camera and
that's gonna create a cool sparkle
effect as all this dust is flying off
the top of the column. All right now we
just need to scale this down so let me
press numpad 7 for top view again.
I'll zoom in and we'll scale that real
small like that, let's press numpad 1 for
front view, let's make sure that it's
centered, or that we have the origin
point in the center of the mass. All
right and let's press tab to get out of
edit mode and I'll press the N key for
the right side toolbar and let's rename
this item to "dust particle" and press N
to get rid of that and then press the M
key and we'll move that to the second
layer because we don't need that right
here it's just gonna spawn as particles
in our particle system. Alright now
let's select our particle system again
but right now it's invisible so let's go
select that from the outliner, and I
assume it's one of these cylinders here,
and I'll assume it's the invisible one.
And here's all of our particle settings,
so we got the right object.
I should probably rename this huh, so let
me press the N key real quick and I'll
rename this to "column - emitter" then
press N to get rid of that again.
Now let's pan down to the render panel
and first of all will disable emitter
because we don't want this duplicate
column to render we just want the
particles from it to, and let's change the
particles by enabling "object" here, and
now we can click on this field and
select the object we want the particles
to be which is in this case the dust
particle, and let's see what we got by
hovering over the 3d view and pressing
Alt + A. You can see it's adding in our
little pyramids as particles but they're
really tiny, so at least for the time
being I'm gonna increase the size and we
can do that with the size option right
here let me turn that up to 0.5 and
let's see how that looks so I'll press
Alt + A again and that looks good right
now just to visualize things.
And in fact let me press the right arrow
until I start seeing those particles so
we can work with them. So you can see
they're all being added in very
uniformly so let's first off start by
randomizing the size. So let's increase
the random size here to maybe 0.6
I think looks good
and now we got to work on randomizing
the rotations as well. Alright so we're
done down there, let's scroll up to the
rotation panel here click on that
checkbox to enable it and we'll give our
particles some initial orientation by
increasing the random value to 1. And
what that's going to do is upon spawning
every one of these particles is going to
be given a random rotation you don't see
any changes now because we need to rerun
the simulation, so I'll just press the
left arrow until it is a few frames
before the particle starts spawning. We
don't actually have to go back to frame
0, just a couple frames before the
particles actually start appearing. Now
let's give those particles some rotation
while they're actually floating in the
air. So let's go over here and add some
angular velocity this time
so first we'll need to enable dynamic,
and then increase angular velocity to 3
now if we press Alt + A over here you
can see the rotating as they're falling
down. Alright let's take a break from
particles for a second and add in some
wind, so I'll do that from top view by
pressing down pad 7. I'll press shift + a
and from the force field menu I'll add
in some wind, and let me press numpad 1
for front view now we want this blowing
from right to left. So let's point this
arrow here left so I'll press R hold
ctrl and rotate it 90 degrees. Now let me
press G and I'll move that over there
right into the middle of the height of
the column and let's press numpad 3 for
side view and let's press the comma key
to switch back to bounding box pivot
point scaling instead of the 3d cursor
then press s and scale that up and till
it's a little bit bigger than the column.
Actually it's been a while since I use
these but I don't think the scale
actually matters, but whatever.
And it's blowing the particles not
exactly very fiercely so let's increase
the strength of this thing. So I'll press
Esc and then go over to the physics
buttons here, and we'll increase the
strength up to let's try 5.
Let's press Alt + A and see how it
looks, and that's much better, much better
cool, so I'm gonna keep it at 5 and
now I'm looking at the particles and they're
being blown across very uniformly and it
doesn't look all that interesting. I want
them to kind of scatter a little bit as
well so let me go back into the outliner
here and click on "column emitter" to
select our particle system object again
and let's go back to the particle
settings. And we'll increase the
randomness by increasing the Brownian
force right here. So I'll increase that
to 6 and let's press Alt + A and see
how it looks and that is much better,
let me press numpad 0 for camera view
and I'll press the Z key for shaded view.
Cool let me see that again from the
start.
Perfect, awesome. Alright now let's move
some of the things out of this layer
that we don't actually need. So I'm gonna
select both of our our box objects up
there I'll press the M key and I'll move
that to the second layer. Now the last
thing we'll do is animate the wind
generator just for some variation how
the dust is blowing off the column. So
let's go down to the timeline and
activate this button here for automatic
keyframing
that makes it so whenever we change the
frame and then move or rotate or scale
an object it will automatically insert a
keyframe for that. So we're gonna do kind
of an interesting way of animating right
now. I'm gonna press Alt + A to start the
animation and then once it starts over
I'm gonna start rotating this. I'll just
press the R key and start rotating it. So
now I'll press R, and let's wait for it
start again, and I'll do this. And I'll
just get it blowing the way I want it to
and then once the dust is off the screen
I'll right-click. And as you can see when
the animation starts over all those
keyframes were added in so that thing's
rotating on its own now because that
animation was recorded. All right so
that's actually all there is to it.
Now you can add more particles if you
want. I use the lower number just so the
simulations ran faster for the tutorial
but you can definitely add a lot more
particles for a denser cloud of dust. And
that's gonna do it for this video and
it's a good thing too because my
neighbors just started cursing each
other off and I don't want that picked
up on the mic. So I'll see you around. If
you like this tutorial and you're
interested in more comprehensive blender
training then check out my course
complete vehicle production in blender
this is a step-by-step guide on the
entire creation process of a Jeep
Wrangler, including modeling inside and
out, creating all the shaders from
scratch, and rendering out the final
product. Check out the link in the
description for more details and stay
tuned for new videos every weekend.
