Sandstorm

Sandstorm turns a volume of your scene into a desert dust storm, the kind known as a haboob. Thick, billowing dust hangs close to the ground and thins with height, walls of dust taller than the rest roll through on the wind, and along the ground sand grains hop in short streaks.

How it works

The dust is drawn as a continuous haze inside the object's volume, and objects inside it are hidden by exactly as much dust as lies in front of them. Gust fronts arrive one after another, each a steep leading wall with a long settling tail behind it, broken into lumpy, cauliflower-like edges. The dust colour tints everything seen through it, so a thick storm turns the whole view brown.

Settings

• Density, Height and Haze: how thick the dust is, how high it reaches, and how much fine dust hangs between the walls.
• Walls: the strength of the rolling dust walls.
• Grains and Grain Size: the sand hopping along the ground.
• Wind Strength, Wind Direction and Turbulence: the speed of the storm and how torn the billows are.
• Color and Shade Color: the dust in the light and in shadow.

The cursor can be a windbreak with still air behind it, a dust devil that lifts a glowing, spinning column, or a gust that shoves the dust aside.

Use it for

Desert, post-apocalyptic, Mars and action scenes. Set it over Dunes or Canyon.