| Maya Dynamics - Catapult |
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| Written by Aaron F. Ross | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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January 22, 2011 
Complex animations are generally simulated procedurally rather than animated by hand. For example, if you want realistic collisions, a Rigid Body simulation is the way to go. It would take too long to keyframe many colliding objects by hand, and it would be difficult to achieve convincing results. In this hour-long series of eight free videos, you’ll learn how to simulate the movement and collision of objects. Maya’s Rigid Body dynamics engine calculates the physics to save you time! The catapult exercise is a classic introduction to Rigid Body dynamics, covering active and passive bodies, constraints, solver settings, and baking the simulation to keyframes. In the video tutorials, we explore the entire Rigid Body workflow, including: Project Setup and Scene Layout
Supplemental material This small Zip file includes a Maya ASCII scene used in the tutorial. It is a catapult model with high and low levels of detail on separate Display Layers.
Supplemental material Lesson Notes complement tutorials. They reduce complex multi-stage procedures to short bullet points. Brief explanations reinforce key concepts. The outline format helps learners focus on the content, rather than spend a lot of time reading. To access Lesson Notes, you need to join the guild. Here is a sample of the Lesson Notes:
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