Sunbeam Dust

Sunbeam Dust is the shaft of light that falls through a window into a quiet room, full of slowly drifting dust. The beam is crossed by the shadows of the window bars, the motes inside it shine while those outside barely show, and the ones close to the lens blur into soft round discs, as in a photograph.

How it works

Every mote is nudged by tiny random jolts from the air, carried by slow, swirling currents and settles very gently under its own weight, with a warm updraft rising inside the beam. A mote is brightest when you look toward the sun through it, because dust scatters light mostly forward. Tumbling flakes catch the sun in brief glints.

Settings

• Beam Angle, Beam Width and Window Panes: how high the sun is, how wide the window is, and how many bars cast shadow lines through the light.
• Temperature and Turbulence: the jitter of the motes and the air currents.
• Haze Density: how strongly the shaft itself shows.
• Aperture: 0 keeps every mote sharp; higher values turn out-of-focus motes into bokeh.

The cursor can be a hand that pushes the air and casts its own shadow down the beam, a small torch that lights the dust around it, or a charged rod that pulls motes in and throws them back off.

Use it for

Interiors, cinematic product shots and quiet editorial scenes. Add god rays for more light, or see the other particles.