Helicopter kicking up dust

[opentarget]

Im currently messing around with ice for the first time.
I am animating a helicopter landing and would like it to kick up dust as it dose, when a chopper lands the dust particles should get pushed out and and up, some of the smaller particles should be attracted to the main rotor into a sort of vortex.

being new to ice its very daunting. i have a very simply version made that involves the particles birthed onto the groundplane with 0 speed and a Null Controller force repelling particles, this can be animated so when linked to the chopper it will move about and moves the particles from its center. this looks good but it dosnt change intensity closer or further away from the particles, also this just pushes the particles away and dosnt attract smaller ones into the rotor. is it possible to tell ice to randomly change the mass of some particles so they react differently? and what would i do to suck some particles into the blades and spin em about it?

again im very new to ice so any help would be most appreciated.
any training or reading material that you could suggest would be nice to.

thanks a million!

[owei]

Hi...!

Well, this is not a simple task at all. Perhaps you append your scene and I´ll have a look over it, so I don´t have to start from scratch ;)

best regards,
oliver

[opentarget]

hey, thanks for the reply.
I have attached the file for you to have a look at. as you can see its not great. this is down to the lack of knowledge in ice.
thanks for any help you can offer at all

[owei]

Ok...first, is this what you are after..?

Helicopter Landing Reference Video

...As you can see, all the dust is blown away and nothing is sucked towards the rotor again...the particles are moving, like the air does, following the pressures...

I´ll have a look over your scene...

[opentarget]

wow thats great reference!
yes that is what im looking for, although the video has a lot more dust than i will have the idea is the same. I always thought that some smaler particles would be brought in and whiped around in the rotors but this video seams to sujest otherwise.
i havnt seen reference as good as that where did you find it?
thanks a million!

[owei]

...just use google: "helicopter landing dust"...there it comes ;)

[owei]

Something like this..??

http://www.si-community.com/temp/dust.wmv

cheers,
oliver

[opentarget]

yep something a lot like that!
can i ask what you have done differently to the scene to achieve this?
also can you recomend some source of ice learning that may be of use? like books or sites or whatever if something exists?

[owei]

Well, I use to think of the forces going on in this system. The rotor blows air towards the ground. This is done by a simple surface force, that drives the particles away. The particles are sliding on the surface. In real life the blowing in y would be a result of fluid dynmaics swirling the air. In our case I apply a force from the ground in positive y. This force kicks in, as the particles reach a certain velocity. There is also a gravity force pulling the particles to the ground again. Additionaly I blend in somekind of vorticity force, that gives the particles a more swirly behavior...
At least it all consists of balance between following forces:
- force from the rotor
- force from the ground in positive y
- swirling force
- gravity force

OK...here is the scene...

Hope that helps..!

Well, learning material is hard to find. Guess, digital tutors did some ICE Stuff...and i3d...if I remeber right, there was a training bundled with version 7..?

[opentarget]

thanks a million for your help.
ill look at your scene and play around with it to learn what you have done.
ill dig out the training dvd that came with 7...its hear somewhere lol.
i guess its a matter of thinking about the effect befor diving right in, for my first attempt with particles im still quite happy with mysef.

thanks again.

kev