Learning Autodesk Maya 2010: Foundation

Dynamics

Another animation technique is dynamics. You can set up objects in your scene that animate based on physical effects such as collisions, gravity, and wind. Different variables are bounciness, friction, or initial velocity. When you play back the scene, you run a simulation to see how all the parts react to the variables.

This technique gives you natural motion that would be difficult to keyframe. You can use dynamics with rigid body objects, particles, or soft body objects.

Rigid body objects are objects that do not deform. You can further edit the rigid body by setting it as either active or passive. Active bodies react to the dynamics, whereas passive bodies do not.

To simulate effects such as wind or gravity, you add fields to your ...