Josh wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been animating pov for a while, done moving the camera, objects,
> walking etc.  But now I want to move to the next level.  I'd like to
> try animating the sand falling in an hourglass.  I envision lots of
> "sand-grain" objects.  The question I have is how would you guys
> recommend starting this. Should I write extensive SDL or model the
> scene in a C# app' that outputs the scenes?  Anyone got any
> suggestions?

As someone has already posted, your best bet is to probably just write some
code to make it "look right".  However, if you want to do it accurately...

Doing it in a fast language is an absolute must, these sims will take a long
time.  You will need a trade off between number of grains (ie simulation
time) and how realistic it is going to look.

You also need some decent code to model the physics of the grains fast.  The
simplest way is to just compare the position of each grain with every other
and the container and then apply some sort of replusion force when they get
too close.  This however will take *forever* with more than few hundred
grains and will need a lot of tweaking to keep it stable and realistic.
There are ways to speed it up, like keeping a record of which grains are in
similar "regions" to other grains, then you don't have to compare every
single grain with every other one.

It would look absolutely stunning if you could do this well, but I suspect
the simulation times would be massive. Even a very small amount of sand
would probably contain millions of grains.

A nice little project though if you like that sort of thing.

Post a reply to this message