Making a salt grinder grind salt!

Hi all,

I have an assignment for college, we have to bring in a object modelled in another program and make a animation of it working in 3ds Max. So I have a nice little salt grinder that Ive made in Inventor, what I'm hoping to do it fill it with salt and show little flakes falling when I rotate the handle, can someone point me in the right direction for this, eg tools or helpful tutorials. I have been using Max for about 6 months now but im wondering if this is a bit above me.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Lox

Take a look at this tutorial: http://www.creativecrash.com/3dsmax/tutorials/particles-fx/c/water-fountain-tutorial. It's for creating a fountain, but the same principles can be applied toward salt particles falling out of your salt shaker.

Thanks again CAD64, very helpful tutorial.

Another quick question? How can i make a object fade away and then come back again. eg i want the outer casing of the salf grinder to fade away so i can show the internal workings of the grinder and then for the outside casing to come back again?

Lox

Sorry about the late reply.

Just change the opacity of your material as you move along the timeline.

Example

1. Start with the timeline slider at 0 and your material opacity set to 100.

2. Click the "Auto Key" button to start animation

3. Move the timeline slider to 50 and then set your material opacity to 50.

4. Move the timeline slider to 100 and change the material opacity back to 100.

5. Click the "Auto Key" button to end animation

6. Click Play to watch the result

Hope that helps.

Awesome,

Thanks again Cad64.