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# 43 20-08-2011 , 07:45 PM
NextDesign's Avatar
Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,988

I would like to see some advanced physics simulation tutorials in Maya. I mean, more than just a bouncing ball. I'm thinking along the lines of a car engine with a rotating crankshaft and working pistons, turning gears in a transmission, turning a drive shaft which drives gears in a rear differential which turns the wheels which makes the car move forward. All driven by fields that push down on the pistons at the correct times. Also, a simulated steering system, and a simple shifting mechanism to reverse the drive shaft rotation without having to reverse the engine rotation.

All done with rigid bodies, each part's movement caused by another part - pure physics, no cheating with constraints or key frames. Of course, one would want to bake the animation at some point, but that's not the point of the tutorial.

That's just an example. It need not be a car. Just something that really covers most of the "gotchas" on physics sims. It may seem like too much on paper, but I don't see that it's any more tedious than say, the victorian house tut (which is an excellent beginner tut, btw user added image ).

Pretty please? user added image

This would be quite simple actually if you used constraints smartly. Mostly just orient and aim constraints.


Imagination is more important than knowledge.