Rigid body dynamics let you create realistic motion using rigid body objects (referred to as rigid bodies), which are objects that do not deform in a collision. With rigid body dynamics, you can create animation that could be difficult or time-consuming to achieve with other animation techniques, such as keyframing. For instance, you can easily make effects such as curling rocks or billiard balls colliding and rebounding off each other, a set of die tumbling onto a crap table, or a clock’s pendulum swinging back and forth.
To create rigid body dynamics, you make objects in the scene into rigid bodies. Then you add forces to create movement. The dynamics operator calculates the moment of inertia about a rigid body’s centre of mass resulting from forces acting on the rigid body, then does collision detection on the geometry of all rigid bodies involved in the collision.
All elements that take part in a rigid body simulation must exist within the same environment. This includes the rigid bodies themselves, forces, and rigid body constraints (see next page). Currently, elements in this environment can be in the same scene as other simulations, such as soft bodies, cloth, particles, and hair, but they do not interact with each other. For example, a rigid body can act as an obstacle for particles, but the rigid body’s movement would not be affected by the particles.
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Before you start to create a rigid body simulation, consider the scale of Softimage units and objects in your scene. This can make a big difference in how the rigid bodies are simulated! See Getting Set Up for Rigid Body Simulations for more information on appropriate scales. |
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5