Dynamics,dynamics,dynamics......

[bcbarnes]

Well, like you, I've found that rigid body stuff is pretty straight forward, but the soft body stuff is still mostly a mystery. I have had limited success with it - very limited.

Fortunately, I haven't "required" it for anything I've done, and they've made the soft body calculations faster in R8, so that should help too. I've been too busy with all the other modules to spend too much more time on it.

Anyway - don't feel like you're alone. Dynamics is probably one of the least understood (or understandable?) modules.

[JIII]

here is to dynamics V.2.

I have not used it but it apparently needs alot of work to be up to the usual maxon standards.

[anobrin]

C4D Dynamics is just plain poorly implemented
IMHO:annoyed:
the dynamics engine needs to be somehow incorporated
into the core applcation.
because the "solver"
is just too slow in calculating
and the constant need to reinitialize it is frankly ridiculous:thumbsdow

its good for basic hard collisions, but for any worthwhile
soft body simulation beyond simple "cloth drops"
.............forget it:shame:

http://66.70.166.29/promo/clthdrop.mpg

[tcastudios]

So it seems Dynamics isn´t the best of the Modules. And I´m not that stupid then...
As a user (I haven´t a clue how a computer really works) I´d really just want to see some straight forward controls for the objects. All going from -100 to 100.
- Mass. So objects have a relative to each other and gravity.
- Soft to Hard
- Liquidity. Like how well it holds together.
- Plastic. How much it will keep a deformation.
- Bounceiness. How fast it will recover from a deformation.
- WindSensitivity. How much wind it will catch.
- Collision. Yes or No.

I´d rather have these 7 parameters just working and -then- maybe some extra stuff for trimming.
As of now I never get to the trimming state since the basics just ain´t possible to get working within a mans age.
And these 7 parameters must work -regardless- of the Solvers state.
I mean, if you have chosen Full+Self" under "Collision" you dont wan´t things -not- colliding. Right? That is the case now.

Well, let´s hope something is up with this.

Regards
Lennart

[zued]

I have to agree with the rest..
Spend your money on some other plugs untill maxon has fixed its shortcomings..

( I think I losed some money on this deal,,, :()

[jorgevaldes]

..... I´d really just want to see some straight forward controls for the objects. All going from -100 to 100.
- Mass. So objects have a relative to each other and gravity.
- Soft to Hard
- Liquidity. Like how well it holds together.
- Plastic. How much it will keep a deformation.
- Bounceiness. How fast it will recover from a deformation.
- WindSensitivity. How much wind it will catch.
- Collision. Yes or No.

Lennart

well it does have those controls, but you need to be familiar with engineering or physics (or maybe other dynamics programs) to more or less know what each is for, if you don't (wich I guess is the case since you say you didn't find those controls) I'd recommend reading the manual cover to cover.. it explains what each setting does.

btw:
- Mass = mass
- Soft to Hard = control these using soft body springs
- Liquidity= this also
- Plastic=again same as avobe
- Bounceiness= elasticity
- WindSensitivity=lift/drag/linear coeficients
- Collision. Yes or No=collision none/Full or full+self (only use self whaen really necesary , since it slows down calculations a lot)

[Other3DMaster]

Yeah, Maxon's Dynamics is a pain in the butt. I use dynamics in Maya and then export with .fbx for rendering in C4D.

[InTheCity]

Yeah, Maxon's Dynamics is a pain in the butt. I use dynamics in Maya and then export with .fbx for rendering in C4D.
I was just coming in to say the same thing. My understanding of Maya is currently limited, but it's dynamics make sense, they're fast, they're amazing and filmbox makes for a great transfer.

[Simon Wicker]

hmm. not being silly here but what actually are you trying to do??? i tend to fall into the opposite camp here, i prefer the softbodies in cinema over the hard bodies. however i'm not exactly attempting to cloth figures or anything, just create drapes, flags and such-like for my matte paintings (which is fairly straightforwards using the current dynamics module).

without knowing what you are trying to do it is hard to suggest what may be going wrong and what (if anything) can be done to fix it.

cheers, simon w.

[nendo_3d]

yeh dynamics is rubbish. its slow and well kinda hard to set up rey to get the affects u want

[3dg]

I have to admit i'm with Simon on this one. I got frustrated and didn't touch dynamics for almost a year. But a few months ago i had some free time, and for some unknown miraculous reason i've been able to do everything i've tried with it since then. I guess i just needed that time to gain a better understanding of how it works. I've had a lot of success with cloth too, which i prefer over the RB dynamics. (Only because they look cooler and more impressive though) :rolleyes:


Can you tell us what you are trying to do?

Gary

[BESTrin]

The demo movies on maxons site are impressive but in my few chances to play with dynamics i must say it has many problems especially with softbodies passing through solid objects and such. Also some form of dynamics with mocca like ragdoll body dynamics would be much apreciated i think.

[3dg]

The demo movies on maxons site are impressive but in my few chances to play with dynamics i must say it has many problems especially with softbodies passing through solid objects and such. Also some form of dynamics with mocca like ragdoll body dynamics would be much apreciated i think.
Agreed. One of the issues with the SBD is that the collision detections are calculated from the vertices...so if you have only a few polys, well yes, it's going to go right through a solid object. You need to increasy your poly count to fix this, and or increase eps settings.

Sure, it has it's pitfalls, but the Dynamics module is working better for me these days since the new Soft body solver was added...funny thing, i think it is less accurate, but is so much faster that it allows for more experimentation. Make sure you are using the new Soft Body solver setting...it saves a lot of time.

HTH

Gary

[tcastudios]

Oh. Lots of input to an old thread of mine. I still get stuck each time I try Dynamics.
Most, if not all, times I try it I end up with using Fizz or xpresso. It simply goes faster to do and that makes Dynamics silly.
I -have- read the manual and tried it for hundreds of hours, as stated, but it doesnt make sense. As for my seven parameters (mass etc) I know they are there but they don´t work as they should I think. In Carrera you just choose "wood" or "metall" and the core parameters are set.

I´d love to see a simple scene with falling objects (spheres, cubes etc) that actually stops in a controlled way on a plane. For me it has never happened.....

Cheers
Lennart

[Other3DMaster]

Yeah, and now with Maya Unlimited (fluid dynamics) and RealFlow coming to the mac, there are great options for me to get any type of dynamic simulation going... but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see a nice healthy update to Maxon's own dynamic offerings...

[nendo_3d]

it needs to be alot more faster. dynamics in thinking particles is ace. only the dynamics plugin thats slow. the problem i have is that a olid never seems to actualy hit the floor. it bounces before

[3dg]

it needs to be alot more faster. dynamics in thinking particles is ace. only the dynamics plugin thats slow. the problem i have is that a olid never seems to actualy hit the floor. it bounces before
Faster would be great.

To make solid objects actually hit the floor, either lower your eps number in the solver, or place a smaller object inside teh geometry of your object to be used as the actual rigid body.

for example: You have a brick that you want to fall and hit the floor. Make a duplicate of your brick that is a bit smaller and put it inside the geometry of the "real" brick. Child the "real" brick to the smaller one. set up rigid body dynamics for the smaller brick. Now the real brick will appear to hit the floor instead of bouncing above the floor.

[Other3DMaster]

Faster would be great.

for example: You have a brick that you want to fall and hit the floor. Make a duplicate of your brick that is a bit smaller and put it inside the geometry of the "real" brick. Child the "real" brick to the smaller one. set up rigid body dynamics for the smaller brick. Now the real brick will appear to hit the floor instead of bouncing above the floor.

This is a great tip, and I've used such a setup to get the effect I want. But again, this workaround illustrates the inherent problem with C4D dynamics. Such tweaking shouldn't be necessary.

[3dg]

This is a great tip, and I've used such a setup to get the effect I want. But again, this workaround illustrates the inherent problem with C4D dynamics. Such tweaking shouldn't be necessary.
I agree things could be better, but even the very expensive Havok engine used by so many game companies for XBox, PS2 and Gamecube, uses this method. They use proxy geometry all the time. It is also a very smart way to deal with complex objects that you don't want to have to wait on all the polygon level collisions to calculate. If you have a very high poly count chair for instance, why not use simple geometry like a few cubes stretched to match the shape of the chair. Child the high res model to the low res Rigid Body. This is done all the time. No need to over complicate the simulation...

Just my opinion though. :)

[3dg]

I´d love to see a simple scene with falling objects (spheres, cubes etc) that actually stops in a controlled way on a plane. For me it has never happened.....

Did you mean to say cube instead of plane? If you are trying to use a plane as the floor, then you will have little success. A plane is infinitely flat. It has no depth to it. In order for a physics simulation to work, you shoud use a cube with big x and z values, but small y value as the floor.

Gary

[tcastudios]

I know I need a cube or anything volumetric (as a floor). I´d say I know a lot of Dynamics by now. Every trick in the book (I think). It still doesn´t "behave"...

So, by using -any- method using Dynamics I still love to see objects fall and land realisticly on a floor.

Cheers
Lennart

[Grin3d]

cool to get some answers to a thread i've posted here this week. http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=157706. I still haven't a result that i like. But with input given from this thread i see a chance ... thanks.

[BESTrin]

dynamics has always fascinated me but i think that maxons dynamics module could use some work. I have only had a chanc to use dynamics on 8.2 so im not sure about this soft body solver. I think maybe maxon should integrate the new engine showcasing at sigraph. a thread about it started in the news forum. Its crazy fast. More pollys might work but not for me i use a platonic object with hypernurbs for a soft sphere as sugested in the tutorial catching a soft body on maxons site or similar setup because my computer simply cant handle that.

[spineribjoint]

Also spent hundreds of hours, soft body-rigid body, just wont work. I turned myself to other tools. My cloth sample just moves like a ghost thru stuff.

This is where Cinema is far behind the other packages.
Would like to see this changed soon ...

[JoelOtron]

Perhaps we'll know more in a week.....

Siggraph: August 10-12

[BESTrin]

or if cinema had suport for a third party dynamics system.

[Other3DMaster]

Well, there is support for realflow via a plugin... and their site shows more than just fluid dynamics, there are some traditional solid body examples as well...

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