When objects impact the ground, such as bullets or footsteps, one often expects to see an effect such as a puff of dust (dust hit) or a burst of debris. This four part tutorial demonstrates how to create dust hits and debris from bullets hitting the ground, fired by an animated jet fighter composited into a live action background.

Chapter One: Creating a Dust Hit Generator
In chapter one, we create a dust hit generator that allows us to easily create a library of sequences to map onto particle sprites. The generator incorporates volume emission, omni emission, volume axis fields, turbulence, multiStreak and sprite particles, expressions and hardware rendering.

Chapter Two: Collision Events and Sprite Sequences
In chapter two, we create the necessary collision events to generate our particles at the moment of bullet impact. We then move onto the various steps required to setup our sprites, including custom attributes, expressions to be able to randomly select various dust hit sequences for each impact sprite, and sprite sequence setup in After Effects.

Chapter Three: Live Action, Sprite Tweaks, Scorch Marks
In chapter three, we first look at an alternate approach to managing sprite placement that offers increased flexibility. We then integrate our effect into a photographic backplate and add a new collision event to generate scorch marks on the ground where the bullets hit.

Chapter Four: Impact Debris, Rendering and Compositing
In chapter four, we first address the effect of overSampling on our simulation to improve behavior. We then move onto a new collision event to create dynamic debris at the points of impact. Once the effect is complete, our elements are rendered separately, then composited and adjusted in After Effects.

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