Hi everyone,

I have kind of ran in to a big crunch for time on a project and could use any recommendations on this.

I need to simulate the look of pixy dust or a nebula. I know they are not the same whatsoever but just want to get at how they would visually look. i.e. really colorful, glowy, mystical, etc..

My thoughts were to do this in pops and i3d (and think this is still probably the way to go) but it has proven to be somewhat difficult to get my cloud to look very thin and dust-like. I want to get it to look very thin in certain areas and very bold areas in other areas and “creases” in the mist.. Also I like the swirlyness they sometimes have… (does that make sense at all?)

Right now I am just using the metacloud shader with i3d and 3d texture fog shader for mantra. I was assuming a low density render with high noise amplitude and low turbulence/frequency.. but not too sure. don't know if i should be going after a lot of particles in this either. I am also rendering out the raw particles in mantra and compositing them with the cloud so i can get some “sparkle” in their..

So yea, I am open to anything. If you've kinda ventured into something like this in the past or just have anything to say, I'd love to hear about..

Thanks,
Dave