How can I simulate powder with a particle system?

Question

I want to simulate powder, are particles the best job for this and if so what settings could I use to achieve this in Blender?

@gandalf3 I don't know, all I need is that it needs to look as realistic as fine powder. Thanks! — Turbo, Dec 02 '13 at 20:45
This sounds a lot like a tutorial request, which is outside the scope of this site.
If you have a specific question about something you've tried, or if you'd like to know something specific about how to improve something you've already done, we'd be more than happy to help.

Please adjust your question accordingly. — Matt, Dec 02 '13 at 20:51
That's a great question! "What is a good approach to making powder? Should I use.... or....?" The quality of this site is based not only on quality answers, but also on quality questions. It's also important to demonstrate that you've done your own homework by watching/reading tutorials, experimenting with the program, and trying things out.
Help us help you. — Matt, Dec 02 '13 at 21:12
You sound frustrated. I'm sorry if I made you frustrated. By "do your homework," what I meant was that you need to do some investigation yourself. You've made a good start by asking a question here, but this is the wrong place for that broad of a question. Take a look at particle systems in Blender and see if you can make them do what you want. There are lots of tutorials on YouTube about how Blender's particle system works. Those will be a better place to start. If you do get stuck with something that doesn't work the way you expect, come on back and ask another question! Good luck! — Matt, Dec 02 '13 at 21:35
@Matt Thank you for your caring response. I will have a look at some tutorials and will change the questions so that it is like “how do you do this” not “please do this for me” — Turbo, Dec 02 '13 at 21:38

score 13 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 27 '16 at 12:51

Particles:

You could use Newtonian or Fluid type Particles to simulate the powder, with the gears and funnel as Collision objects.

For example:

Add a plane (ShiftA> Mesh > Plane) and add a particle system to it.
Set the Lifetime to a number greater than the scene End frame
Set the Physics to Fluid in Particles > Physics
Add an Icosphere (ShiftA> Mesh > Icosphere). You may want to set the Subdivisions to 1 in the Redo panel or the F6 menu for situations with many small particles.
Set the particle Dupli Object to the icosphere in Particles > Render > Dupli Object
Set the size in Physics as desired, I used .001
Enable Simple in Particles > Children and set the Radius and Uniform Roughness as desired.
- The Radius defines how far child particles are allowed from the real particle
- Uniform roughness gives some randomness to the locations of child particles
Set the Cache Step in Particles > Cache to 1, this will record the location of each particle every frame. The default of 10 often gives strange results.
For object you want to collide with the powder:
1. Add a Collision physics modifier in Properties > Physics
2. Increase the Particle Damping factor. By default particles will bounce very high, this setting controls how much velocity the particle loses on collision with this object.
Bake

How can I simulate powder with a particle system?

1 Answers1

Particles:

Linked