Chapter 14

Dynamic Effects

Maya's nCloth system was originally designed to make dynamic cloth simulation for characters easier to create and animate. The Nucleus dynamics solver, which you learned about in Chapter 13, “Introducing nParticles,” is at the heart of nCloth simulations (the n in nCloth stands for “nucleus”). nCloth has evolved into a dynamic system that goes well beyond simply simulating clothing. Creative use of nCloth in combination with nParticles yields nearly limitless possibilities for interesting effects, as you'll see as you go through the exercises in this chapter.

In this chapter, you'll delve deeper into Maya dynamics to understand how the various dynamic systems, such as nCloth, nParticles, and rigid bodies, can be used together to create spectacular effects. You'll also use particle expressions to control the motion of particle instances.