Maya: Dynamic Simulations with Bullet Physics

1h 36mAdvanced2014-10-16

Authors

Aaron F. Ross

3D Expert, Video Producer, and Teacher

Course details

Visual effects designers and video game artists often need to animate complex scenes containing physical simulations. The Bullet dynamics solver, an open-source physics engine, is a great solution, and it replaces Maya's legacy rigid-body and soft-body toolsets. Fast and efficient, Bullet is highly optimized and integrated into the existing Maya toolset. In this course, Aaron F. Ross shows how to set up and direct Bullet simulations for collisions, breakage, and simple cloth effects. Learn how to create simulations with polygon objects; work with dynamic and passive rigid bodies; integrate dynamics with keyframes, constraints, and soft bodies; and use rigid sets to create breakage simulations. Aaron will also show how to leverage Alembic data for faster baking, caching, and importing and exporting.

Learning objectives
Loading the Bullet plugins
Creating static and dynamic bodies
Adjusting solver attributes
Integrating keyframes
Creating and transforming constraints
Creating rigid sets
Holding set members together with a Glue constraint
Creating soft bodies
Baking a soft-body simulation
Inflating a soft body with Pressure

Skills covered

Maya3D AnimationRenderingMotion Graphics and VFXAutodesk3D ModelingProjectVisualization and Real-TimeAECProduct and ManufacturingAnimation and Illustration

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome
02 - Using the exercise files
03 - Loading the Bullet plugins

1. Bullet Rigid Body Dynamics

04 - Adopting a scale convention
05 - Setting the playback range
06 - Controlling playback speed
07 - Creating a static body
08 - Creating dynamic bodies
09 - Setting initial velocity
10 - Adjusting solver attributes

2. Integrating Keyframes with Dynamics

11 - Keyframing gravity
12 - Keyframing transforms with Bake Simulation
13 - Cleaning up keyframes
14 - Animating transforms with keyframes
15 - Keying the rigid body type
16 - Adjusting bounce and friction

3. Bullet Rigid Body Constraints

17 - Creating a rigid constraint
18 - Transforming the constraint
19 - Defining Friction, Restitution, and Mass
20 - Setting constraint limits
21 - Setting limit properties

4. Bullet Rigid Sets

22 - Using the shatter effect
23 - Creating a rigid set
24 - Holding set members together with glue
25 - Using collision filters
26 - Keyframing visibility
27 - Slowing motion with damping
28 - Caching with Alembic

5. Bullet Soft Body Dynamics

29 - Creating a soft body
30 - Constraining with soft body anchors
31 - Adjusting soft body properties
32 - Adding wind
33 - Caching soft body animation with Alembic
34 - Inflating a soft body with Pressure

Conclusion

35 - Goodbye