Understanding Particles and Dynamics in Maya

Preview

1. Table Cloth Simulation

Step 1

Open Maya.

Step 2

Create a Polygon Cylinder shape in the perspective viewport.

Step 3

With the cylinder selected, increase the Subdivisions Axis to 50.

Step 4

Create a Polygon Plane in the perspective viewport and put it above the cylinder.

Step 5

With the plane selected, increase the Subdivisions Width and Height to 50 to make the tessellation dense.

Step 6

Turn on nDynamics mode. With the plane selected, go to nMesh > Create nCloth to make the plane as cloth.

Step 7

With the cylinder selected, go to nMesh > Create Passive Collider to enable the cylinder to collide with the cloth.

Step 8

Hit the play button to see the table cloth simulation. You can press 3 key on the keyboard to make the table cloth smooth.

Step 9

To get more detailed and enhanced wrinkles on the cloth, you must increase the subdivisions of the cloth.

You can see the difference between the cloths with fewer subdivisions and more subdivisions in the following image.

2. Flag Simulation

Step 1

Create a Polygon Plane in the perspective viewport.

Step 2

With the plane selected, increase the Subdivisions Width and Height to 50 to make the tessellation dense.

Step 3

With the plane selected, go to nMesh > Create nCloth to make the plane as cloth.

Step 4

With the plane selected, make a right click on it and select the Vertex mode. In the vertex mode, select the extreme left side’s vertices of the plane vertically as shown in the following image.

Step 5

With the vertices selected, go to nConstraint > Transform. The transform property of the selected vertices is locked now and these vertices will not take part in the simulation.

Step 6

Hit the play button to simulate the flag animation. You will see the flag cloth slopes down. It seems there is no wind in the scene.

Step 7

With the cloth selected, go to Attribute Editor > nucleus1 > Gravity and Wind and increase the Wind Speed to 20.

Step 8

Now hit the play button and you will see the simulation of flag blowing in the wind.

3. Attaching Flag to Pole

Step 1

First of all you need to erase the transform constraint from the flag. With the flag selected, go to nConstraint > Remove Dynamic Constraint.

Step 2

Create a cylinder and place it beside the cloth as shown in the following image.

Step 3

With the cylinder selected, go to nMesh > Create Passive Collider to enable the cylinder to collide with the cloth.

Step 4

Select the left vertices of the plane, press Shift key and select the cylinder and then go to nConstraint > Point to Surface. This binds all the selected vertices to the pole.