Chapter 18. Dynamics


As you build your scenes in Maya, you'll likely encounter effects that would be difficult to create using basic shaders (Figure 18.1), or situations that would be nearly impossible to animate using traditional keyframing. Leaves blowing across the landscape, for example, or a glass shattering as it hits the ground can take hours to animate by handand the scene still may not end up looking realistic.

Figure 18.1. Rocket trails created using particle effects.


Maya's Dynamics tools simulate real-world physics. Using these tools, you can create objects that bounce off each other, that have mass and momentum, and that deform in a realistic way. Dynamics can simulate complicated scenarios, like a truck full of marbles tipping over, as well as simpler things, like a pencil falling off a desk. For example, with just a few mouse clicks (and without setting a single keyframe), you can make a leaf appear to be pushed along by the wind as it simultaneously collides with and rolls along the ground.

While using the Dynamics menu set can be fun, it can also be frustrating. Using Dynamics requires assigning many objects in your scenes a large number of new attributes by hand. In addition, hundreds of options are available for most dynamic simulations. In this chapter, we'll concentrate on the basics so that you can get up and running quickly.




Maya 7 for Windows and Macintosh(c) Visual Quickstart Guide
Maya 7 for Windows & Macintosh
ISBN: 0321348990
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 185

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