Creating a Dynamic Wrecking Ball Simulation Using Mass FX and Constraints in 3ds Max
Preview
1. Creating the Chain
Step 1
Open
3ds Max. Go to Shapes > Splines >
Ellipse and draw an oval shape in the front viewport.
Step 2
With the oval shape selected, open the Rendering rollout tab. Turn on Enable In Renderer and Enable In Viewport options. Increase the Thickness value to 7.
Step 3
Right click on the oval shape and turn it into Editable Poly.
Step 4
With the oval poly shape selected, click on Hierarchy panel. Enable Affect Pivot Only option and drag the pivot of the oval poly shape to the extreme right.
Don’t forget to turn off the
Affect Pivot Only option after that.
Step 5
Make
a copy of the oval poly shape and rotate it. Both objects must not intersect
each other.

Step 6
Make
several copies of the oval shapes to form a chain link.

2. Creating Constraint
Step 1
With the chain selected, go to Mass FX toolbar and select Set Selected as Dynamic Rigid Body option.

Step 2
With
the first oval poly shape from the left side selected, go to Constrains > Create Universal Constraint.

Step 3
It
creates a UConstraint at the pivot
point of the oval poly shape.

Step 4
For the first oval poly object, its parent would be the next oval poly object.
Click on Parent tab and select the
next oval poly object as the parent of the first oval poly object. Turn on Free radio buttons of Swing Y, Swing Z and Twist
properties.

Step 5
You
can lower the UConstraint icon size
also. Put a smaller value in Icon Size.

Step 6
Following
the same way, with the next oval poly object selected, go to Constraints > Create Universal Constraint.

Step 7
It
creates a UConstraint at the pivot
point of the oval poly shape.

Step 8
For
this oval poly object, its parent would be the next oval poly object. So, click
on Parent tab and select the next
oval poly object as the parent of the selected oval poly object. Turn on Free radio buttons of Swing Y, Swing Z and Twist
properties.

Step 9
Following
the same way, keep making constraints for each oval poly object one by one.
After a couple of minutes, you will have the completed chain.

Step 10
Create
a sphere. Put it at the end of the chain link. This will act as the wrecking
ball.

Step 11
Put the pivot of the sphere at the edge of the sphere as shown in the following image.

Step 12
Make this sphere as a dynamic rigid body.

Step 13
Apply
Universal Constraint to the sphere.

Step 14
For
this sphere object, its parent would be the first oval poly object. Click
on Parent tab and select the first
oval poly object as the parent of the selected sphere object. Turn on Free radio buttons of Swing Y, Swing Z and Twist
properties.

Step 15
Create a small low poly sphere at the extreme right end of the chain.

Step 16
This
time, make this sphere as a Kinematic
Rigid Body.

Step 17
With
the indicated oval poly object selected, apply Universal Constraint to it.

Step 18
Select the low poly sphere as the parent of it. Turn on Free radio buttons of Swing Y and Swing Z. Keep the radio button of Twist turned off.

Step 19
With
the wrecking ball sphere selected, click on Mass FX Tool icon. Inside the Mass
FX Tool window, go to Multi-Object
Editor tab and put the Mass
value as 5.

Step 20
Click on Start Simulation icon. You
will see a fine simulation of chained wrecking ball in the viewport.

3. Installing Fracture Voronoi Script
Step 1
Go
to scriptspot.com and download
Fracture Voronoi script.
Step 2
Save
the script in the 3ds Max Scripts
folder.
4. Fracture the Wall
Step 1
Create
a box in the viewport to make a wall.

Step 2
With the wall selected, go
to Max Script > Run Script.

Step 3
It
opens the Choose Editor file window. Select the Fracture Voronoi
script and click on Open.
Step 4
It
opens the Fracture Voronoi script window.
Click on Pick Object button and then select the wall in the viewport.

Step 5
I
have set the Nb parts as 40 since I want the wall to be
broken into forty different chunks. I've selected the Uniform color
option as I want all the chunks in a same color.

Step 6
Click
on Break in 40 button. It breaks the box wall into 40 pieces.

Step 7
You
can further break each broken piece into several more chunks. Select a broken
piece and then repeat the process from Steps 2 to 6.

5. Fracture Simulation
Step 1
With
all wall chunks selected, make them as Dynamic
Rigid Body.

Step 2
With
all wall chunks selected, go to Multi-Object
Editor tab and put the Mass
value as 5. Turn on Start in Sleep Mode option.

Step 3
Click on Start Simulation button. You will see the wall shattering
simulation in the viewport.

Step 4
Once
you are satisfied with the simulation result, click on Bake All tab to bake all simulation.

Conclusion
Mass FX is a great dynamics tool in 3ds Max. It has replaced Reactor and has more controls over the dynamic simulation than ever.
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