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mmaarrttiinn
01-26-2007, 05:40 PM
Can anybody give me an advice, how to learn more about the way maya is solving physical simulations (Books, Tutorials, other hints)
I want Maya to solve the 3-dimensional diffusion equation. This means mathematically solving an 3 dimensional partial differential equation for each time step. I´m interested how such equations can be implemented in Maya and how the solvers operate.

:shrug:I would also like to know, how solvers for rigid body collisions operate, because I have some problems with a simulation that I regarded as quiet uncomplex. 10 polygonal spheres in a box (Boolean Difference of two polygons) making elastic -non energy consuming- collisions with each other(active rigid bodies) and with the walls of the box (passive rigid body). At certain shapes of the box (that contains the spheres) there is the problem that interpenetration of spheres with walls of the box occour and after sufficient time of simulation some spheres are leaving the box going right through the wall. Solving Method is Runge Kutta, step size is as small as possible. Can somebody help me?

Thank you.
Sphere♥
01-26-2007, 08:08 PM
I doubt you'll find out what Maya is exactly doing internally for dynamics as it's closed source. There is an open source dynamics engine called ODE (http://www.ode.org/) for which you can take a look at the source code to get an idea of how dynamics engines are generally implemented, however this might not be how Maya implemented theirs.

For your problem with simple dynamics, if you are going to use primitives, like spheres and boxes, you need to set the primitives stand-ins under the performance options for rigid bodies. I've dropped hundreds of spheres inside a box using Maya's own dynamics and it performed quite well when I set sphere and box under the stand-in option. Note that for this your box walls and floor need to be individual box walls and floor, not a boolean difference.

You could also try the free Nima PhysX for Maya (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=86&t=297327) fast dynamics plug-in. It works quite well, and it's fast.
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