Unreal falling sand (or another software ?)

[efwfew]

Hey everyone, just joined, hope my question is allowed in here.
I’m a student in 3D modeling, I’m new in VFX, the only times I dabbled in it was with niagara in unreal.
I’m working on a big end of college project, (a very short film) and I’d like to create sand falling from a door shaking.

pretty much like this, but along a wall.

I saw online ways to do it with a self made photoshop texture and animate it with a panner in unreal, but i’d like to have something that look better (if possible ) My project takes place in a pyramid, I’d like to get a good sand look.
My question is, would using niagara work ? Simulate a bunch of particle falling down ? or is there a better/faster/easier way to do it ? Not that I know how to do it, but at least so I’m not wasting time.

I don’t even know if my question is vfx haha, but since i’m getting 0 help from my school i’m kinda shooting my shot everywhere I can as the dead line is approaching and my stress level rising.

Thanks!

[kimber]

Hey! I did something recently for a project. I would say a good path is to use both your panning texture method, and look into adding small GPU-driven grains (either tiny mesh bits with collision, or sprites with collision). You’ll have to play with adding multiple emitters and layering in your base dust fall with a dusty/smokey falloff around it, and the heavier ‘grain’ bits that fall and bounce/pileup on the ground.

[efwfew]

Thanks for the reply! That’s a good idea, I never thought of just taking the easy method and trying to upgrade it. I’ll try asap