Using Reactor...

[Ryan Dognaux]

Well, I don't even know where to start, but I do know that after animating container after container last year that I don't wanna do it again. For the balls this year, how do you use reactor to model some real-life movements??

[rowe]

you have to use reactor, but you already knew that. to set up the process, you must first add a ridgid body collection to the scene, under the modify tab, add the objects you want to be simulated, including stationary objects. u may choose to add a reactor plane to the scene, but having a regular plane added to the ridgid body collection works well too. after you have added all the objects, go the utility tab and select reactor. under properties there should be a mass input box. 0 kgs is the default setting and indicates that the object is stationary. for concave objects, you will be required to use to change simulation geometry. once you have all this, go to hte preveiw & animation menu and hit create animation.

[Salik Syed]

read the book that comes with max...it isn't really that hard....i know that "isn't helpful" but thats probably easier.. and will give you more info

[rowe]

i agree, and would add that for the whole of max, the documentation is great, use it!

[Ryan Dognaux]

Alright, will do, I was mainly creating a thread for people in the future that come to the chief forums looking for help with Reactor. Cause in all honesty, it's not something very many people use... and it's complicated at first glance.

[Matt Hallock]

Be careful about the complexity of the object you are trying to group as, a "Rigid body."

[Salik Syed]

ditto....i tried to simulate a planetary gearing system....it TOTALLY froze a dual Xeon 1gig ram system.....

and really...the manual isn't that complex...you can simulate balls bouncing in like 25 min

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Salik Syed

and really...the manual isn't that complex...you can simulate balls bouncing in like 25 min

kthx, your point has been made.

If anyone else has reactor tips for others, put them in this thread.

[matt111]

my team tried it for the bins last year but it didnt work as planned...the program has incredible potential if u can use it right. i no im repeating but the tutorials are a big help. especially the balls-in-a-bucket for this year.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Okay so how would I make an object hit another object...like how would I make it so the robot would drive up and knock the ball off the tee with real world dynamics?

[Tom Bottiglieri]

u need to set the weights in the reactor property editor.. im not an expert, but if u have in ur animation a point in time where the planes of the 2 objetcs intersect, and u go to the reactor menu and click make animation, it will do out all the calculations and simulate it

[kcy88]

Create a spline. Have your robot follow that spline. Add a rigid body collection. Add the robot and whatever objects you want the robot to interact with. Set the weights. adjsut the friction and the other one.
i think that's the basic steps.

i have a question. Why do objects jump at the start of the scene after incorpating Reactor with the objects?
For example. a simpel scene:

i placed couple cubes in a room, i add them to my rigid body collection, i set a weight to like 20, and i hit Preview Animation. The havoc window comes up and i press P for play. The first thing i see is that the cubes jump up and then fall back down. How do i prevent this? Which setting is affecting the objects?

i have the scene animated, but my broadband provider has an upload limit and my quick render of the scene is past the limit (36,828 KB)


-kevin

[rowe]

i had the same problem, but only with the new reactor (the one that comes with 3dsmax 6) i think it might be a bug in the new program, but i still havent messed around with it enough to figure out how to fix it.

[Matt Hallock]

The major causes of jumps and things like that I've found is if your objects "bounding box" or whatever you decided to use is clipping each other. I'll do some tests for you when I'm at school tomorrow.

[Nero]

I want to animate clothing around a character using reactor. It when i set the clothing as a "clothing" and the mesh of the character as a "rigid body", but it doesn't take into acount the animation of the rigid body (such as walking or moving arms etc). Any ideas how to get reactor to take into acount that?