Any idea how to Mimic this sand movement with a shader?

[fraggle]

Hello, I'm wondering if it's wise to create a shader or better to make a postprod with photoshop to mimic this type of sand toy. I'm even not sure if a shader can be so done with such tricky drawing.
Post prod will narrow the number of camera angle shot.
This is called sand moving picture and the first artist behind this seems to be Klaus Bosch (aka The Sandman)
Thanks for your advice.

[^Lele^]

That's exquisitely fluid dynamics, and potentially fairly complex too.
I'd think a shader would have to do about the same amount of calculations as a single-cell-thickness grid, with the other two dimensions being those of width and height of the texture, in pixels.
It'd likely cost the same or more.
You could try it with phoenixFD, texturing your "liquid" (it's a frontal projection, after all), and it ought to work mixing differently viscous fluids.
You'd also get a chance to add sparkles via a stochastic flakes texture, or blend material.
You could possibly find some hint in this (or other) PhoenixFD examples.

[fraggle]

Thanks,
it sounds very tricky, I will have a look to other solution like vfx maybe.I can't afford to spend weeks just to develop a one time asset.

[fixeighted]

Did you try a Tyflow granualar setup? Maybe it'd work...I might try tomorrow.....if I have any luck I'll post ofc

[fraggle]

I give up after spending really too long on it and never reached an encouraging result.

[Joelaff]

If you don’t get too close to it perhaps you could film a real life version and use that as a texture map. Never underestimate a good cheat.