that’s looking great. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn’t look like the clouds are settling back down. Right now it kind of looks like foam because the avalanche clouds grow and then stay there.
FXWars! Avalanche!: CoryC
coryc
#42
The snow clouds don’t settle back down for quite a while (depending on the type of snow). One of my resource videos has an avalanche that has a snow cloud running at least 500 yards and the beginning still has snow that is a good 100 feet tall at least. It kind of just billows around like regular clouds in high speed.
Thanks Stallion and Jonas. We get snow here but no avalanches. I’ve shoveled enough of it to know I would rather watch it on the computer though.
motoxpress
#45
I had the same question. If that is indeed the case, shouldn’t there still be movement in the trailing clouds? It seems like it grows to a point and then freezes so, it seems unnatural.
It looks great BTW.
gl
coryc
#46
I’m not sure what you mean. The snow clouds are kicked up and then slow down and slowly (probably a couple of minutes at least) fall back to earth. There is always some turbulance but the snow clouds don’t continue to change size very quickly. That is how my last test was. They grow and then slowly shrink with some turbulent movement continuing.
I’d love to work on it more but I have run out of time that I can spend on the challenge so this is as far as I will get.
cpaulson
#47
that’s a shame you can’t finish… but if you do somehow find the time, maybe if you had the clouds thin out as they age it would look a little more realistic… and as they disapate they should grow as well… i haven’t seen you reference image but it just stands to reason that they will grow as they get older not shrink… and they will become more transparent as they grow… my 2 cents anyways.
coryc
#48
Here is a good link with a video that might help clear some of the confusion of what a real avalanche like I was working on should look like - http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0301/. Remember, those snow clouds are made up of solid snow powder, not water vapor. They grow from the initial blast of wind and energy from hidden snow, ice, and debris then settle down slowly. They wouldn’t continue to expand due to gravity and a loss of the energy that created them. they wouldn’t thin because they are a solid mass slowly falling at a constant state. Physics alone say that it would take almost 4 seconds for the particles to return to earth from 200 feet and that doesn’t factor in the wind resistance that will keep them up a lot longer.
Fasty
#49
Hey Cory, it’s a shame you won’t be able to finish this but good work on getting as far as you did! Hope you enter again in the next FX Challenge 
cpaulson
#50
check out the video on this sight http://juneaualaska.com/stories/avalanche/ if you think about it, snow is fine particles that are influenced by wind and gravity and such, so there will be drifting and disipation as the avalanche progreses, also, i would imagine that the great amount of friction caused by large amounts of snow moving very quickly would liquify some of the snow causing more of the expansion and disapation that i was talking about. as you will see in that video there are two visable layers in an avalanche there is the thick base full of debris and there is the cloud or “wash” that is carried off the surface and into the air, this cloud acts like any other gas, it drifts and expands and becomes less and less visable as it ages… anyhoo check out the vid, you will see what i mean
jussing
#51
There’s been a lot of clever tips on avalanches in the last handful of posts, but IMO they’re all microscopic details compared to actually making something that “basically” looks like an avalanche, AND has the right physics to throw things around. When you have THAT, THEN you can start worrying about how snow particles settle.
Anyhow, I think Cory has one of the best-looking avalanches in the challenge so far, gravity or not.
I hope your running out of time doesn’t mean you won’t submit.
Cheers everybody,
- Jonas
coryc
#52
No, I won’t be submitting. I don’t have all the elements required. I’ll be going out of town in a few days so I’ll be missing the deadline and the start of the voting as it is.
DJ-Nicke
#54
Hi Cory,
Excellent work so far! Even if you don’t enter it you should still post whatever you finish up with. I’d love to see it.
If I could suggest something, your avalanche seems to be lacking momentum. Unlike dust kicked up in your path, which rises but doesn’t move forward, an avalanche has tremendous forward inertia. The bottom snow-slide doesn’t always move forward the fastest, sometimes the cloud overshoots itself and then the rest needs to catch up. The cloud itself is moving forward all the time, some slowly, some quickly, but always downhill. Also, the front edge tends to roll backwards onto itself. The forward movement of the snow on the ground causes a slight suction which pulls the snow-cloud in backwards. Imagine a large barrel rolling downhill on top of several smaller tubes. The large barrel would be spinning the opposite direction to it’s travel. This is often covered up by spurts of snow jutting forward, but should be underneath.
-DJ
coryc
#55
Hey Fasty and DJ Nicke,
No, unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) I have real work I have to get done then I’ll be out of town this weekend for some photography. I postponed my trip from last weekend so I would have had some time to work on it more if I knew about the extension but probably not enough to finish anything. It would take me a long time to pull off what DJ Nicke is suggesting. Anyway, I have posted everything that I have done so far.
Thanks
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