Zen -Garden Simulation
Hey everyone, maybe you can help me out with a problem.
I’m trying to simulate a „Zen garden effect“, but instead of sand or small pebbles, I want to use tiny cylinder objects to represent plastic granules. You’ve probably seen those videos where someone rakes through sand and leaves those cool patterns, I’d love to replicate that effect. The cherry on top would be having two layers of granules, so when the grooves are formed, you can see a second color hidden in the deeper layer.
I’ve already tried several approaches: with X-Particles, with the native Cinema 4D particle system (2026.1.2), and a simple Cloner spawning a massive amount of cylinders.
The Cloner has worked best so far, but the scene hits its limits very quickly; I’m getting constant errors during simulation and my PC keeps freezing up when I use too many objects. Good thing with the cloner approach is, that the cylinders are mostly laying still after spawning and don‘t move around (which is exactly what i need).
How would you guys generally approach this effect? I’m pretty stuck and feel like I’m either missing something or just don't have the technical depth yet.