Moving tornado

[Ralph Keyser]

I'm trying to get a dust devil (like a little tornado) moving across the landscape. Building one was easy with an emitter and a wind effector set to rotation(y). Now, however, as I move the emitter/effector, the particles trail out behind it, but I'd like them to stay stacked up in a column over the emitter.

This seems like it should be easy to do, but I've been unable to find the key. Advice would be greatly appreciated.

[composermanII]

Did you parent the wind effector to the particle emitter? If not, do so. If you did, check to see that the wind or emitter do not have keyframes that would cause it to trail off.

Good luck

Troy McClellan

[Ralph Keyser]

Yep, the wind effector is parented to the emitter. The emitter does have movement keyframes, although I've also tried it with the emitter and effectors both parented to a null. It's really doing what I'd expect, just not what I want :) The particles end up looking like a trail of dust or smoke rather than moving as a whole like a tornado does.

[Hiraghm]

Maybe you could set them to collide with each other, and set a high viscosity level?

[toby]

make sure that "Etc/parent motion" is at 100% - you can even go past 100, envelope it and make it sway back and forth - just like the cartoon :cool:

[bradenbickle]

I know this is not a sexy fix, but you could keep the tornado still and move everything else. (ie. the landscape, lights, etc.

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by Ralph Keyser
I'm trying to get a dust devil (like a little tornado) moving across the landscape. Building one was easy with an emitter and a wind effector set to rotation(y). Now, however, as I move the emitter/effector, the particles trail out behind it, but I'd like them to stay stacked up in a column over the emitter.

This seems like it should be easy to do, but I've been unable to find the key. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
Make a particle object in modeler rather then using an emitter.
You can attach HVs to that and just spin it and use displacement maps etc etc to deform it.

[Ralph Keyser]

Doh! <sound of hand slapping forehead> :)

Of course. Thanks Larry, an elegant solution.

[SplineGod]

Thanks! :)
Another option would be to make your particle object an emitter so you do leave a little dust trail.
Another suggestion would be to use Inertia or FIs_Lagmotion
on a spinning object with motionblur.