I want to create a desert scene, and I was thinking to have wind that’s blowing around dust, like a dust devil. I’m fairly new to blender so would I use a particle system? Or perhaps a wind simulation? I’m thinking it would look like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD1Ff1h_4so) but lighter and blowing quickly along the ground. Thanks in advance!
The best way, in my opinion, would be a smoke simulation.
Here are your options, you could make a particle system and tweak the settings to get what you want. However, the amount of particles would be just atrocious. The bake time would be overnight. And for a less realistic approach, you could just do a smoke simulation. The only disadvantages of the smoke simulator is that the smoke is usually kind of a pain to control and, cycles can’t render smoke. But, baking the smoke would be much much quicker than the particle system. It’s up to you. I honestly think using a particle system would be less of a pain to perfect.
watch:
There is a great tutorial on creating a Tornado using Particles and Smoke in combination. I think its on YouTube on the BlenderCookie channel.
I’ve seen this same method used to produce Water Spouts (tornado over water), dust devils (minor whirling dust tornadoes), and a fire tornado. I have yet to see this used with sharks…