Hi pictospace,
I moved the thread, as the Tutorial forum should be fed only from the “Help with this Tutorial” button [left sided to the tutorial itself], to keep things organized.
Or was that an request for an tutorial?
I have attached a simple solution, With a hint (Dynamic Spline) for the rotation. But that will not work as to rotate the whole thing.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/dWTwm3mTJTl4BMB7njdvTjcuFf98VtQjcZzZeTXEqsi?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy
Just to have something to discuss. It’s a sketch only!
Do you want to create a particle solution or a graphical based solution, as in simulating the sand pile with e.g., Boole Object effects?
Sand is certainly not simple, if we talk about an “hour glass”, as it has certainly very fine sand, which behaves more like fluid. With that in mind, millions of particles need to collide among each other. A fluid system sounds more what you are looking for. RealFlow-Cinema 4D or X-Particles comes to mind. Both application certainly can do it. Since I have only Real Flow here as teaching license, I can’t help with X-Particles. You might check in their Forum for good “sand” settings, with a “mesher”, so the overall processing time, IMHO, gets lower. Perhaps Houdini has something for you, which can be supportive for C4D as well.
To do it in MoGraph Dynamics, make certain that your Shape is set to Ellipsoid (better to Box) and the Cloner Object to Render Instances. Also, cache the whole thing, so you get at least some reasonable speed.
All the best
