Sand trail

Sand trail leaves copies of a moving object behind it that fall apart into sand. Each copy is made of grains taken from the object's surface; they are released from the top down, pour under gravity onto the floor and lie there in a little heap. The object itself stays whole. The trail works wherever the object moves, from an effect such as Leaf fall, an animation clip, an ongoing motion or a drag in the studio, and leaves nothing while the object stands still.

How it works

A copy is laid each time the object has travelled a set distance, so a long move leaves a line of crumbling shapes along its path. The grains are crisp round dots with clean edges, not soft blur, and each grain picks its colour between the two sand colours. Kept on an object, the trail switches on before the entrance and keeps going through the exit, and it combines with every other trail.

Settings

- Length: how long each copy takes to crumble and settle. - Amount: how often a copy is left. - Size: how big the grains are. - Strength: how strong the grains look. - Sand colour and Dark grains: the grains vary between the two. - Fade: how long the trail takes to switch on and off.

Use it for

Desert and time themes, an object passing like an hourglass, calm product moves. To turn the whole object to sand, use Sand erosion, and set it on a Sahara Dune floor.