Particle to Blob to Surface Settlement

Support Particles and Physics Simulations
1

I want to create this type of animation in underwater scene. Here is the idea:

  1. The polymer will be in round particles form.
  2. On interaction with water (dissolution), the rounded particles will be converted to cylindrical ones.
  3. Particles coalesce to form a bloby structure while going down in the water.
  4. Then the blob will settle down to fill up the canal bed to avoid seepage.

I tried metaballs, searched on web but I’m getting no idea how to animate it in a simplest way. Help would be appreciated! Thanks.

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2

Metaballs seem to be a good fit, but I don’t think there’s a way to do this automatically.

A possible solution would be a geometry node, but it doesn’t seem to be simple. I’m not sure about geometry nodes. :thinking:

3

Metaballs are good fit for the blobiness but I can’t get to solve how to transition from particle systems to the blob and then settling on floor.

4

I don’t know how to do it with particles. :thinking:
It will depend on how you will direct the scene.

  1. The scene where the polymer binds.
    You’ll have to animate this scene manually.
    I can try the same method as the video below, but I don’t think the meta ball will work.
    https://youtu.be/34pqDXd1CTU

  2. Scenes that fall after clumping, in which you can animate with particles using clumped objects.

※ Particle animation does not recognize collisions.
If collision recognition is required, Addon must be used.

5

I am also thinking of the following workflow:

  1. Gather the particles using Boid Particle System.
  2. For the blob, I use Fluid Simulation, in the start, I show a small blob and then it will increase in size and then settle down.

I think fluid sim can handle the settlement very easily but I don’t know if I can differ the size of the blob while it is moving down.

6

I don’t think we’ll know at the moment. :thinking:
Particles and fluid simulations may simply get what you want, but control won’t be easy.

Simulation and particles won’t solve all the problems.

Whether this method is a simple solution or whether it will cause more problems will only be known by making it according to the idea.