How would I go if I want to simulate a ground covered with little stones like on the picture below?

my first idea was to create a particle cloud, apply gravity to them and let the particles then fall into a very flat open box to completely fill it.



things to find out:

- applying stone-like objects per particle. (does a random radiusPP pass values to the objects?) is it even possible to connect spheres to the particles? how do I connect them?

right now I have the box, particles and gravity. the particles fall until they collide with the box and bounce back waaay to much. (conserve energy..?) or do I have to use Per Particle Expressions to controll things like Velocity etc...?



lots of questions. I will do research now, and probably post results to my own questions. but I am sure there are some issues which take me more time than I have for this. so I wanted to post it as soon as possible.

hope you guys have some ideas!

thx


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ah yes! forgot to tell.
the reason I start this so complicated is because I need a track from a caterpillar in the end which moved along the ground and left overlaying trace marks. I thought it would be the easiest thing to dynamically create this stuff since I need all different maps in the end. Diffuse, AO, Normal, Spec etc..