Generating dust clouds in isaacsim

Omniverse Isaac Sim
1

I am trying to simulate dust clouds generated by a vehicle moving on sand underwater in isaacsim.

I do not need very accurate physics for each of the sand particles, I just need an approximation. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks

3

Hi @shardul1, thank you for your question. I have not seen an example that implements dust particles, but you could potentially get this to work using Particle Systems by making the particles dynamics very light weight. Then, you can post-process the rendering to get a dust particles effect: Particles — Omni Physics. Let me know if this may work for you. If you look at the Physics examples included in Isaac Sim you can find a few that use the Particle System API.

4

HI @michalin, I took a look at the particle physics example, and I think it looks promising. Post processing looks interesting. Is there a way I could make the particles transparent?

5

I am trying to change the opacity but it doesnt let me

image
image1675×877 190 KB

6

Thank you for following up. You can get a decent “dusty/volumetric” look using built‑in materials, but you won’t find a dedicated dust shader; you’ll typically use a translucent surface (OmniPBR/UsdPreviewSurface) plus tuned opacity and roughness.[1][2]

Recommended built‑in options

  • Use a UsdPreviewSurface or OmniPBR‑based material and drive its opacity in [0,1] for transparency.[2:1][3]
  • For a simple dust cloud “card,” apply a quad mesh with:
    • opacity around 0.2–0.6 (tune to taste),
    • high roughness and low metallic to make it look matte.[2:2]
  • If you use Isaac Lab’s PreviewSurfaceCfg (for markers etc.), its opacity parameter is exactly this 0–1 range and is meant for interactive rendering.

Making opacity actually work

  • In the Render Settings → Translucency, enable “Enable Fractional cutout Opacity” so non‑binary opacity values are respected in real‑time mode.[1:1]
  • In the material:
    • Turn Opacity on and set opacityThreshold low (e.g., 0.0–0.1) to avoid hard cut‑outs and keep smooth gradients.[1:2][2:3]
    • If you are using a texture, connect its alpha (or grayscale) to the material’s opacity input; an alpha‑masked dirt/dust texture gives much better breakup than flat opacity.[4][2:4]

Useful starting points in Isaac Sim

  • Any simple plastic/lambertian or generic surface from the material library can be converted to a “dust” look by:
    • Desaturating the base color to a light gray/brown,
    • Increasing roughness,
    • Decreasing opacity as above.[5][2:5]
  • For thin “dust sheets” on glass or air:
    • If you use an OmniGlass‑like template, enable Thin Walled and set IOR near 1.0 to avoid heavy refraction and keep it cheap/flat, which reads more like haze/dust than glass.[6]

Practical recipe (one card / volume proxy)

For a quick, tweakable dust patch using only provided assets:

  1. Create a thin box or quad where you want the dust.
  2. Assign a UsdPreviewSurface‑based material from the library.
  3. Set:
    • base color slightly tinted (e.g., light brown/gray),
    • roughness ≈ 0.8–1.0, metallic = 0,
    • opacity ≈ 0.3–0.5, opacityThreshold ≈ 0.0–0.1.[2:6]
  4. In Render Settings, enable fractional opacity as above.[1:3]

  1. How to add transparent visual materials in Isaac Sim? ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. UsdPreviewSurface — Omniverse Materials and Rendering ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. [isaacsim.core.experimental.materials] Isaac Sim Core (Materials) — Isaac Sim ↩︎

  4. UsdPreviewSurface use alpha of UsdUVTexture as opacity input | Forums | SideFX ↩︎

  5. Materials — Isaac Sim Documentation ↩︎

  6. Materials Best Practices — Omniverse SimReady ↩︎

7

Hello!

We noticed that this topic hasn’t received any recent updates from anyone reporting this issue, so we are closing it for now to help keep the forum organized.

If you are still experiencing this issue or have related questions, please create a GitHub Discussion or Issue in the Isaac Sim repository and include a link to this topic along with updated details. Mentioning or linking to this original topic provides helpful context and makes it easier for others to assist you.

Thank you for being part of the NVIDIA Isaac Sim community.

Best regards,
The NVIDIA Isaac Sim Forum Team