debris with particle instance

[csp]

hello guys,

I have an destruction scene where one of the shots has the two characters in front of the camera and all kind of objects (broken pieces, debris, etc.) flying around, coming in the shot from both left and right. I have attached an illustration which I did on photoshop and this maybe give you an idea of what I am aiming for.

I am not sure which is the best approach in order to achieve this effect but I though pops will be cheaper than dops. My idea is to use few sources from both sides which will not be visible to the camera, emitting particles to the center of the shot and have instanced geometry in a random way from a library of objects. Any other idea?

In the case of pops and instanced geometry, in order to have multiple objects I am using a group node in pops network which groups the particles in a random way. then I'm using a instance node for each object I want to link to each group. When you have few objects what looks enough but when you have to instance 30+ objects doesn't seems very efficient. Is there any expression for that? How can I have random rotation to each instance?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[tmdag]

I assume that You won't need any kind of interaction/collision so it could be simple pointcloud instancing debris with velocity data.

You may animate it in just vops or pops or even dops with sop solver. I think that you should choose solution in which you would feel more comfortable.

in dops you could additionally create smoke sim and maybe another pop that would advect smoke velocity for tiny, grain for particles.

Edited November 18, 2011 by tmdag

[csp]

I assume that You won't need any kind of interaction/collision so it could be simple pointcloud instancing debris with velocity data.

You may animate it in just vops or pops or even dops with sop solver. I think that you should choose solution in which you would feel more comfortable.

in dops you could additionally create smoke sim and maybe another pop that would advect smoke velocity for tiny, grain for particles.

thanks for your reply tmdag, I could use pops or dops (or a combination) which I am more familiar with. About the smoke/dust its a good point to do the effect in dops but it could also be in an additional layer bring them together on compositing, doesn't need to be in the same simulation I think. I will be back with few test and more questions. I hope to have your feedbacks guys.

[tmdag]

it doesn't nee to be same simulation but you could inherit velocities from point clouds/instanced objects to create smoke (as a separate layer)