How to Create a Bouncing Ball in Autodesk Maya Using Dynamics

Hey

I'm back with a new tutorial. I promised I would do the animating fire ball, but I have got something cooler and much, much more easier than that.

Today, I will show you how to create a bouncing ball using dynamics in Maya, after that you can add the fire effects like I have shown in the previous tutorial.


1: First create a polygonal plane and polygonal sphere in Autdesk Maya, dimensions are not a problem over here.


2: Then, rotate the plane about 14.5 degrees on the x-axis of the rotation sphere.









3: Then go to the "soft/rigid bodies" section on the top and make the sphere the active rigid body and the plane a passive rigid body. This states to the sphere that it will be active in the animation, and the plane will be stable and immobile in the animation itself and serve as a wall or a base.




4: After that you should know that the active and passive rigid bodies will not move and due to that there should be gravity that would pull the active rigid body down as in real life. Therefore, we will go to the fields drop down menu and then we will add a gravity field to the active rigid body, which in this case is the sphere that will bounce.







5: Voila! Your work to do a bouncing ball in Maya using dynamics is over and when you hit the play button which is at the right bottom corner of the Maya window, your ball will actually bounce as a real life ball bounces on a sloping terrain. If you want to add any other effects such as if you want the fire ball to bounce down then just add the fire effect and settle the units according to your own needs.

Niramay.