How do I make Paint Effects tubes respond to dynamic forces?
 

I'm using Maya 4.0 on Win2000. In the on-line guide, it says that it is possible to make Paint Effects tubes respond to dynamic forces like gravity and drag, but it doesn't explain how. I'm using one of the presets (Mohekan hair) on a model, but I want it to flop as the character moves.

I've tried making the hair into a soft body, but there is no real geometry, so it won't convert.

How can I get that hair to respond to gravity and movement without having to animate it directly?

Many thanks for your help.

I think that is done through the use of locators, although the exact know-how is something I don´t have. Might consider investigating locators.

Hope it helps ..

http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Tmp..._fx_fur_m.html -> How to Create Long Hair Using Maya Paint Effects and Maya Cloth.

Some pointers here too:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/%7Edwyi12...air_design.htm

Thanks for the help guys. As it turns out, there's a really simple method of achieving what I'm looking for.

Make the paint Effects stroke. Keep it active and then go to the Paint Effects menu in the Render toolset. From there go to Animate Stroke>Make Stroke Spring. The settings need to be tweaked a bit, but it works a charm!

Learned a lot about soft bodies and jiggle deformers in the process though!

I've attached a little Quicktime Movie to demonstrate the result on a basic shape. Sorenson Compression, so you'll need at least QT4.

Thank you again.

Julian

OK, sorry. The movie doesn't seem to hyave appeared. Can we not upload movie files - even small ones?

Julian

OK, sorry. The movie doesn't seem to have appeared. Can we not upload movie files - even small ones?

Julian