How to Drop a Mesh Soft Body in Maya

Maya is a 3-D modeling and animation program that allows 3-D artists to create complex scenes and fully animated characters. Maya aids artists in this respect by enabling soft body mesh creation. These meshes allow each vertex point of the model to move independently as though it were a separate particle, enabling the creation of wave effects, cloth draping and other complex animation effects. Soft body meshes can even replicate effects such as gravity, allowing for realistic drop effects in animations without the hours of work they would take to create by hand.

Instructions

1. • 1
     Start the Maya software and open the saved scene that contains the model you want to convert to a soft body mesh. If you don't have a model created, use the default blank scene to create a new model using polygons, subdivided surfaces or NURBS, non-uniform rational B-spline, modeling tools.
   • 2
     Use the "Move" tool to position the model at the point you want it to drop from. If it begins the drop from on top of another object in the scene, position the mesh on top of that object without intersect or overlap, since overlapping meshes can cause animation problems.
   • 3
     Create a plane or other object at the bottom of the scene if you haven't modeled a floor for the soft body mesh to drop to. While this need not be an actual "floor" for the scene, it must be large enough to contain the soft body mesh and prevent it from continuing to fall indefinitely.
   • 4
     Use the "Select" pointer tool and click the "floor" of the scene to select it. Select the "Create Active Rigid Body" option from the Soft/Rigid Bodies menu and apply the default settings. This transforms the "floor" of the scene into a rigid body mesh capable of stopping the movement of the dropped mesh. If your soft body mesh starts the scene on top of another object, convert that object into an active rigid body mesh as well.
   • 5
     Select the object you wish to drop and convert it to a soft body mesh by choosing the "Create Soft Body" option from the Soft/Rigid Bodies menu and applying the default settings. The mesh will be converted to a soft body mesh, with each vertex point capable of independent movement.
   • 6
     Open the Fields menu and select the "Gravity" option. This creates a gravity force object in the scene. Use the default settings during object creation so that you can adjust the settings afterward to generate the exact effect that you want.
   • 7
     Click the "Play" button in the lower right corner of the Maya window to view the scene with its current settings. Stop the scene and click the gravity force object to select it; adjust its settings in the "Options" panel on the right side of the screen based on how well your soft body object reacted to it.
   • 8
     Continue playing the scene and adjusting the scene's gravity until your soft body object drops and impacts in exactly the manner you want for your animation.