Maya Simulation Tips and Tricks - Rigid Bodies, Dynamics and Cloth Justin Muir, Midway Games

Basic Production Workflow Near Enough is ‘probably’ Good Enough Tweaking your simulation later with some hand editing is acceptable - what matters is the final result Perfect simulations are attainable – they just take a good deal of time Use animation layers to edit your animation

Basic Production Workflow Mesh Topology and Geometry Topology affects a simulation as much as any value Carefully build your objects as you would expect them to behave and deform Ensure your rigging is going to give you the deformation you need

Basic Production Workflow Setting Simulation Parameters Some values do more than others (friction, gravity) Every variable change will yield a unique simulation - so tweaking a critical value slightly may result in dramatic changes Extreme values stress the system - be conservative

Basic Production Workflow Batching Simulation Values Use a simple MEL script to make a ‘test matrix’ to discover correct values for hard to determine variables Run the script overnight and review the simulations in the morning for further tuning

Basic Production Workflow Batching Simulation Values – 2 Variables

Basic Production Workflow Batching Simulation Values – 3 Variables

Basic Production Workflow Batching Simulation - MEL  Load Base Scene Iterate through combinations of… Gravity Friction PointMass Simulate Scene Bake Scene Data Render Playblast

Basic Production Workflow Bits and Pieces Pumping up gravity can be a great way to get the scene to a rest state quickly over a few frames - you can ease it in and out For final tuning, using the cache is one of the most important tricks of the trade

Case Study 1 : Mortal Kombat Production Brief Simulate a linked series of breaking chains and pillars for the wicked Quan Chi MK030_QC

Case Study 1 : Mortal Kombat Scene challenges and solutions Pillars required careful modeling for realistic crumbling Pillars used rigid body solving and took 20 minutes per simulation iteration Pillars determine chain simulation positions Solution to batch them with MEL script Chains pre-break use the Hair solver Chains post-break use rigid body solver

Case Study 1 : Mortal Kombat Production Assets Pillar Simulation Directory Merged Maya Scene MK030_Final

Case Study 2 : Wheelman Production Brief Simulate a flamenco dancer’s dress in nCloth

Case Study 2 : Wheelman Production Assets Source Motion Capture Simulation Iterations Final Maya Simulation

Case Study 3 : Mortal Kombat Production Brief Create a set of cloth simulation rigs for MKDC characters that are quick to simulate and tweak.

Case Study 3 : Mortal Kombat Production Assets Pre-Simulation Movie Post-Simulation Movie Kitana Rig Batman Rig Example

Summary Break down simulation tasks Make your scenes as simple as possible Use different tools for different tasks Lots of overlap between tools Experiment and have fun!