Week 5 – Reactor Tutorial

During this weeks lecture we looked at using items in the reactor menu in 3Ds max. To start with I had a go at getting a ball to roll down a slope.

For this I drew out a plane and a sphere. I positioned them to make sure the shapes were not touching and then rotated the plane slightly to create a slope. After this I went to ‘create object’ in the reactor menu and made the sphere and plane ‘rigid bodies.’

After this I applied a mass of 50 to the sphere by opening the properties window. When I previewed this animation the sphere dropped to the plane and rolled off.

Next I added blocks to the scene. I once again made each element a rigid body. Lastly I gave each block a mass of 5.

When I played the animation the sphere rolled along and knocked over the blocks. I then clicked create animation before rendering the scene.

Next I tried to get a table cloth to droop over an object. To do this I started by drawing out a box and making it a rigid body. Next I drew out a plane with many segments and placed it above the box.

I selected the plane and went to the reactor menu, down to apply modifier and selected cloth modifier. Then I went back to the reactor menu with the plane still selected, to create object and created a cloth collection to store the plane.

I then previewed the animation which worked successfully and so created the animation.

Next I went on to complete the reactor tutorial in max. I found this to be a much more complex method than I used to create the previous animation.

To start I drew out a sphere and a sloping plane which I once again made into rigid bodies in the reactor menu. I also gave the sphere a mass to make it move. When I previewed the animation the sphere rolled down the plane so I continued to create the animation.

I then went on to create the arms using a cylinder which I also gave a mass. When previewed this reacted in the same way as the sphere.

After this I created the rest of the body by drawing out different shapes. I then selected the rigid body which the rest of the body belongs to and added these parts. Lastly, I created a small box and placed it at the base of the character and gave it a mass much greater than the rest of the shape. I then grouped it with the rest of the body.

When I previewed the animation the character wobbled down the plane.

Next I went on to create a wooden box. To do this I created one box for the base and cloned it four times to make the sides. I then positioned them and grouped them together before making them a rigid body. I then positioned the wobble-man in the box and cloned it thirty-nine times.

I then previewed the animation and the wobble-man collected in the box.

Next I removed the key frames. I then added one at frame 0 using auto key before adding another at frame 60 where it was rotated so the content spilt out. After this I previewed the animation.

When I was happy with it I selected create animation and rendered it.

The reactor tool seems to be very useful, but I am not sure how well I could do it without a set of instructions.