Best way to generate soil

Support Particles and Physics Simulations
1

I’m assuming the best answer to this involves particles (if you can think of something better, please say so). I have a bunch of plants which I’m added to my scene. I need soid to place their roots into. What’s the best way to generate texured soil?
If it is by particle, how would one go about doing it?

2

You could use so many things: procedural bump, displace, particles, rigid bodies, image textures, maps… combinations. Best to post a link to a reference image which shows nearly exactly the look you want to achieve. The way you say “place their roots into” implies that perhaps it is cutaway shot showing the roots underneath the soil.

Help us by answering these questions and elaborating on your intended scene, and posting a link to an image matching the effect you want:

  1. Cycles or BI
  2. Overall style, (realism, cartoon, line art…)
  3. Reference image link.
3

Or you could just feed your kitchen scraps to some worms, and let them generate the soil. That’s what they do best. :smiley:
(takes a while, though…)

4

you beat me to it lol :smiley:

5

I didn’t even think of that. You could use Blenders digestion sim; it has parameters for consistency, snaking, and even an option for stink lines. Just model the worm and bake for like 2 days. Make sure to create (and assign) a vertex group for the worm’s butthole – otherwise there will be soil everywhere.

6

And don’t forget to toss some random meshes into the worm domain cube. A bunch of monkey heads would work, although the worm sim will digest anything with edges and faces. If you pack them close together, the sim will bake quicker. Two days is like the minimum, though, unless you add more worms (but be sure to check ‘worm collision’ on all the worms so the worms don’t digest each other…) :wink:

7

:yes::p;) Laughing much.

Edit: too far off topic.

As orinoco says below, give a bit more info and you’ll have plenty of suggestions.

8

@ ki4jgt… when you return to this thread, PLEASE IGNORE everything past post #2. Show us what you are trying to achieve, an image or a sketch or something, and you’ll get some decent advice. :o