Autodesk 3ds Max tutorial

Autodesk 3dsMaxTutorial

Creating a rope in 3ds max and animating it using reactor dynamics.

Techniques you'll learn:

Greetings!

This is my first tutorial on 3ds Max reactor dynamics .I'll try to keep it simple (as my previous 3ds tutorials) because I don't wanna

disappoint new users.

We use reactor to animate objects physics as in real world...like its too difficult to animate 100 bouncing spheres by using keyframing..but

quite easy using reactor because it make them to bounce in same manner as in Real World™....

Lets get started...

Start 3ds max...make sure you have the handy dandy reactor bar on the left of your 3ds max window...if not then move pointer over

main toolbar..place over empty space and when it looks like hand right click and select reactor.

Select the Top view port and create two GeoSpheres...set radius30 and assign green and blue color and name these sphere as

"green sphere" and "blue sphere".Create a plank like simple box b/w the spheres..

For the rope we use line segment.Select "Front" viewport zoom out a little and adjust the view so it leave some space at Top for line.In

the "Creation Method" rollout select "Initial Type" and "Drag Type" to Smooth.

For creating a realistic rope, a line with so many vertices should be used.Try to draw a arc like line starting from the top of one sphere to

the second ..make about 25 vertices in the whole line..like one in the image.

Now we attach the both ends of the ropes to the sphere beneath it.So first we move the vertices in the center of the each sphere.

After creating the line select the first vertex and move it into the center of the green sphere by using Align tool (ALT + A) move the last vertex

to the center of the blue sphere..select the vertex press Alt+A and then select the appropriate sphere.

Hopefully you completed this step, it time to apply the rope modifier to our "rope like thing".Rename Line01 to "rope"

Select the line and on the reactor toolbar scroll to the bottom and you see a group of icons with letter "M".Ignore the

T-shirt and the beachball for now and select the rope icon.

Click the plus sign of the reactor Rope modifier and select "Vertex".Select the vertex in the middle of green sphere and in the constrain

rollout click " Attach to Rigid Body".A 3 boxes like icon appear in the list...click on it and scroll up there should be a new "Attach to Rigid Body"rollout..

expand it and click on the none button and select the green sphere.We have to select the vertex to tell the constrain that this is the vertex we wanna attach.

If you click in the view port the vertex will be unselected, instead click on the empty space in the constrain window i.e. just below the 3box icon.

The vertex should change to yellow which means it attached to the sphere.

Select the second vertex and click the "Attach to Rigid Body" button again,another "Attach To Rigid Body" appear in the list....select the second one and select the

vertex which you want to attach,and click on the none button and select the blue sphere.....click on the empty space in the constrain windows.....both vertices should be

yellow by now ....means they are both attached to the spheres...exit from the vertex subobject mode.

I think leave the rope propertes to their default values , sure you can mess with them later.

We already setup the rope now we have to tell max that this rope is in the reactor simulation by adding a rope collection...on the reactor toolbar scroll up and cilck on the

rope collection button..click anywhere in the viewport,rope collection icon appear,select it and in Properties click add button and select the

"rope" or "line01" if you have not renamed it.

Create a Rigid Body collection(3 boxes icon) ,add both spheres and the box in the middle.(do not add rope because it already part of rope collection)

In the last step we set the sphere's wieght or mass...scroll the reactor toolbar down click on the Property editor icon or on the utilities tab click the reactor

button and expand the Properties rollout.Select the Sphere and set it mass to 2.0,repeat the step for the second one,and last select the box,do not set any mass

just check the "Unyeilding" option,which mean that box should remain in its position...click on the Preview Animation button...

Max should warn you that some bodies are interpenetrating, which we allready know just ignore and close.

In the preview window press "P" to play the simulation.Now you can tweak the rope properties.Or you can change the mass of one sphere.

Note:After downloading the 3ds Max file,preview animation by clicking on reactor's tool bars preview animation button.

If you like this 3ds max tutorial then you can try these tutorials written by me:

Questions, Comments ? Email me....Thanks.

Syed Saud

Karachi,Pakistan

awesomesirius@gmail.com

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