Blackmagic Forum

I want to recreate the dust that comes out of dusty books when you drop them on a table. I tried browsing Google and YouTube to hopefully find something close to it, but I just find dust particles that are already floating in the air which isn't what I want.

I'm trying to find some sort of tutorial that explains how to animate dust that moves just like it moves when you drop something dusty. How would I go about this?

There are of course so many ways that this could happen in real life, that I don't think there's a one size fits all solution for your question. The particles inside of Fusion can pretty accurately mimic real life situations, so your best bet is usually to find footage of the way you want your shot to look and analyze it.

Not in the literal sense 'dust comes out of a book' but: is it coming out of the book? Or is it the weight of the book that moves the dust that's on the table the book is dropped on - or both?

In one situation the particles stick to the book and are released by the impact, in the other it's the weight and displaced air that move the dusty particles that are already there.

As soon as you figure that out, recreating what you saw is the next step.

For example in your case, the book doesn't 'create' particles like a fountain does, the particles are all there (at the beginning of the shot) and just have to move.

So if you have an example of your footage, maybe we can offer more specific advice.

Sander de Regt wrote:There are of course so many ways that this could happen in real life, that I don't think there's a one size fits all solution for your question. The particles inside of Fusion can pretty accurately mimic real life situations, so your best bet is usually to find footage of the way you want your shot to look and analyze it.

Not in the literal sense 'dust comes out of a book' but: is it coming out of the book? Or is it the weight of the book that moves the dust that's on the table the book is dropped on - or both?

In one situation the particles stick to the book and are released by the impact, in the other it's the weight and displaced air that move the dusty particles that are already there.

As soon as you figure that out, recreating what you saw is the next step.

For example in your case, the book doesn't 'create' particles like a fountain does, the particles are all there (at the beginning of the shot) and just have to move.

So if you have an example of your footage, maybe we can offer more specific advice.

I don't have any footage, but simply put: a dusty book dropping on a dusty table.

Like you said, the particles would be attached to the book and once the two objects collide, then some of the particles within the book would come outward from the pages and from where the book landed on the table.

I'm just asking to see how I would go about into creating this dusty particle and what equations would I need to add for the velocity and maybe the particles' gravity.

I understand what you're asking, but as I tried to explain: it really depends on what you want it to look like. And I'm not going to do that research for you. There are 100s of different ways that effect can look, so I suggested you'd find some reference footage, so we can try and figure out what forces are creating that look.

Sander de Regt wrote:I understand what you're asking, but as I tried to explain: it really depends on what you want it to look like. And I'm not going to do that research for you. There are 100s of different ways that effect can look, so I suggested you'd find some reference footage, so we can try and figure out what forces are creating that look.

Well, if you want some footage, here it is.
This isn't the best 'gif' for what I wanted, but it's close. Basically 2 objects (in the case of this book, the 2 objects would be each side of the book) colliding and dust that comes out of it.

https://imgr.search.brave.com/lUrsV3uNc ... LmdpZg.gif