Blender Foundations

Chapter 13

Environmental Animation

This Is Not a Physics Class

We’ve done some math, and now we’re going to do some physics. For certain tricks in animation, there is no substitute for the real thing. A bunch of tumbling blocks. A flag blowing in the wind. A shirt draped across a moving body. You could hand-animate each of these, but they are so familiar to us that even a small deviation from real motion will ruin the illusion. In such cases, it can be helpful to use a physics simulation. Blender includes a number of simulators: rigid body (hard objects), soft body (squishy things), cloth, smoke, and fluid. Unfortunately, Blender’s rigid body system was not available before the publication of this book. Lucky for you, you can find a whole section ...