Maya 6 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Chapter 18. Dynamics

As you build your scenes in Maya, you’ll likely encounter effects or situations that would be difficult to create or animate using traditional keyframing. Leaves blowing across the landscape, for example, or a glass shattering as it hits the ground can take hours to animate by hand—and the scene still may not end up looking realistic.

You can use Maya’s Dynamics menus to simplify these tasks by simulating the motion of an object being affected by different physical forces (Figure 18.1). For example, with just a few mouse clicks (and without setting a single keyframe), you can make a leaf appear to be pushed along by the wind as it simultaneously collides with and rolls along the ground.

Figure 18.1. Rocket trails created using ...