Tutorials

Special Effects

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Special Effects
Special Effects Tutorials
This section covers a multitude of effects you
might encounter in your everyday life, such as a
simple cigarette smoke, water from an opened fire
hydrant, fog effects, and even tumbling down the
stairs! You will learn how to use particle systems
with space warps, add environment and lens
effects, as well as create many simulations using
reactor.
Features Covered in This Section
• Creating particle systems
• Using forces and space warps
• Emitting particles from geometry
• Using materials with particles
• Creating and manipulating a camera viewport
• Using different lens effects
• Setting up a volume light
• Creating fog
• Creating rigid body collections
• Creating simulations with reactor
• Setting physical properties for objects in
simulation
• Using Hinge and Rag Doll constraints
Files for This Section
All the files necessary for this tutorial are provided
on the program disc in the \tutorials directory.
Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials
folder from the disc to your local program
installation.
Particle Animation
Particle systems are useful for a variety of
animation tasks. They’re most often employed
when animating a large number of small objects
using procedural methods; for instance, creating a
snowstorm, a stream of water, or an explosion. In
these tutorials, you learn how to create such effects
with the two different types of particle systems in
3ds Max: event-driven and non-event-driven.
The event-driven particle system, called Particle
Flow, tests particle properties, and, based on the
test results, sends them to different events. Each
event assigns various attributes and behaviors
to the particles while they’re in the event. In the
non-event-driven systems, particles typically
exhibit similar properties throughout the
animation, although they can come under the
790 Chapter 8: Special Effects
influence of external forces such as wind and
gravity.
Files for This Section
All the files necessary for this tutorial are provided
on the program disc in the \tutorials directory.
Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials
folder from the disc to your local program
installation.
Non-Event-Driven Particle
Systems
Particle systems are a useful tool for animating
large amounts of objects procedurally. They can
mimic natural effects such as rain, smoke, and
snow, as well as less natural effects such as laser
blasts. The non-event-driven particle systems
covered in these tutorials are particularly useful
for applications in which the particles’ properties
don’t change fundamentally over the course
of the animation. They also serve as a simple
introduction to procedural animation.
Procedural animation is different than ordinary
keyframe animation. In keyframe animation, an
object is moved from keyframe to keyframe. In
procedural animation, the animation of objects
is controlled by a set of parameters. These
parameters can be keyframed over time, but for
the most part, you don’t animate individual objects
or particles in the system.
Note: For each tutorial, in addition to the standard
tutorial files, we provide a sample scene file with
"_completed" in its name. This shows the tutorial
file with all changes made. The completed scenes
were used to render the sample AVI animations.
Skill Level: Intermediate
Time to complete: 2+ hours
Features Covered in This Section
In these lessons you will learn:
• Creating particle systems.
• Using space warps.
• Creating materials to make smoke.
• Emitting particles from geometry.
• Using Noise controllers.
• Using motion blur to create the illusion of water.
• Using PArray and PCloud systems.
• Using parameter wiring.
• Adding fog and volume lighting.
Tutorial Files
All the files necessary for this tutorial
are provided on the program disc in the
\tutorials\simple_particle_effects directory.
Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials
folder from the disc to your local program
installation.
 Creating Cigarette Smoke 791

adjust, the fan’s geometry (except for the fan

Creating Cigarette Smoke motor) is frozen.
In this tutorial, you use a particle system to create a
Create the particle system:
stream of cigarette smoke trailing from an ashtray.
The animation relies on space warps to affect the 1. Activate the Top viewport.
movement of the smoke. For example, you use a
Wind space warp to model the fan in the scene 2. If you need to, select the ashtray and
blowing the smoke around. click Zoom Extents Selected to fit the ashtray
in the viewport.

3. In the Create panel, make sure

Geometry is active, and choose Particle Systems
from the drop-down list.
4. On the Object Type rollout, click Super Spray.
5. In the Top Viewport, click and drag in the
ashtray near the tip of the cigarette object.

Animation techniques used in this tutorial:

• Creating a particle system.
• Creating space warps that affect the motion of
the particles.
• Choosing appropriate particle geometry.
• Creating a material that models smoke when
applied to particles.
Time to complete: 30 minutes Super spray particle system in the Top viewport

Set up the scene:

• Open cigarette_smoke.max.
All the files necessary for this tutorial
are provided on the program disc in the
\tutorials\simple_particle_effects directory.
Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials
folder from the disc to your local program
installation.
The scene contains a simple table, an ashtray,
and a fan. To make the animation easier to
792 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Super spray particle system in a user view
You have now created a Super Spray particle
system. The icon you see is called the emitter. The
emitter doesn’t render, but it shows the location
in the scene where particles will be emitted. The
arrow points up, indicating that initially particles
will move upward out of the center of the icon.
When you create a Super Spray system, the
particles are emitted toward you in the viewport
you click. That is, they move along the Z axis in
the positive direction. This is why we used the Top
viewport to create the system.
(Different kinds of particle systems have differently
shaped emitters, and different emission behavior.)
• Activate the Camera02 viewport, and
then click Play.
A burst of particles leaves the emitter rapidly,
moving in a vertical line. Each particle is
displayed as a plus sign or “tick.” By frame 40,
all of the particles have moved out of the frame.
This doesn’t look much like smoke.
You are seeing the default behavior and settings
for Super Spray. To get a more smoke-like effect,
the first thing to do is adjust the Super Spray
parameters.
Slow the particles down and make them easier to
visualize:
1. With the Super Spray particle system
selected, go to the Modify panel.
Tip: Particle systems have a large number
of rollouts. If you like, you can expand the
command panel to see more rollouts and
controls at once. Move your mouse to the
border between the command panel and the
viewports, and drag the command panel to
create multiple columns. The command panel
can be widened whether it is floating or docked.
To dock or float a command panel, right-click
to one side of the tabs, and choose Float or
Dock from the flyout menu.
2. In the Basic Parameters rollout > Viewport
Display group, change the display type to Dots
rather than Ticks.
For the purpose of working in viewports,
especially when particles are very close
together, Dots give a better preview than the
plus-sign Ticks.
3. In the Basic Parameters rollout > Particle
Formation group, set the Spread value for Off
Axis to 2.0.
(This is the Spread spinner immediately below
the Off Axis spinner, and not the Spread value
associated with Off Plane.)
4. In the Particle Generation rollout > Particle
Motion group, set Speed to 1.5.
Now if you play the animation, you see the
particles stream upward more slowly. The slight
increase in the Spread value means they don’t
move in a completely straight line. (Spread is
measured in degrees. Higher Spread values create
a more fan-like pattern.)
However, the particles stop emitting at frame 30
and completely disappear from the scene at frame
100. To get a smoke effect, you also need to change
 Creating Cigarette Smoke 793

the default values that govern particle generation reminiscent of smoke. But the movement of the
and lifetime. particle system still looks artificial.

Adjust particle generation: Adding Wind, Turbulence, and Drag

1. In the Particle Generation rollout > Particle Particles are not smart. Like sheep, you need
Quantity group, set Use Rate to 30. to herd them. Space warps such as Wind and
This increases the number of particles Gravity add directional fields that affect particle
generated per frame from 10 to 30. motion. In this simulation of cigarette smoke,
you’ll associate the fan with a Wind space warp
Note: When you play the animation in the
that models the breeze from the fan.
Camera02 viewport, you don’t see 30 particles
being emitted per frame. By default, in
Create a wind space warp to simulate a breeze from
viewports, Super Spray displays only 10 percent the fan:
of the particles actually being emitted. This
keeps viewport playback fast. You can adjust 1. Go to the Create Panel and turn on
the preview value in the Viewport Display the Space Warps button.
group of the Basic Parameters rollout, but we
recommend you keep it low. Previewing a large 2. Make sure Forces is the active space warp type.
percentage of particles in a system can seriously 3. In the Object Type rollout, click Wind.
slow down 3ds Max. When you render the 4. Drag in the Left viewport to create the Wind
animation, the rendering uses the full number space warp.
of particles.
Tip: A better way to preview the effect of all
particles is to use the command Rendering >
Make Preview.
2. Also on the Particle Generation rollout, in the
Particle Timing group, set both Emit Stop and
Display Until to 300.
The animation is 300 frames long. Setting Emit
Stop to 300 means that particles continue to
be emitted throughout the animation. Setting Wind space warp created in Left viewport (facing away
from user)
Display Until to the same value means that all
particles that haven’t died remain in the scene
Position the wind space warp:
until the end of the animation.
3. Continuing down, set the Life value to 180.
• Activate the Top viewport. Using
A particle in this system dies 180 frames after Rotate and Move transforms, align the Wind
it is emitted. Not all of the particles will last space warp roughly to that of the fan. The arrow
until frame 300. should point in the direction of the particles.
Now the particles emerge in a denser cloud that
doesn’t move right out of the scene. This is more
794 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Wind space warp in Top viewport, before aligning to fan
Wind space warp in Top viewport, after aligning to fan
You don’t have to be too accurate about aligning
the Wind icon with the fan motor. The wind
direction, and linking it to the motor’s motion,
are the important things.
Link the wind to the fan so their motion is
coordinated:
• With the Top viewport still active and
the Wind space warp still selected, click Select
And Link, then drag from the Wind space warp
to the FanMotor object.
Now if you play the animation, the Wind space
warp rotates with the oscillating fan. Nothing
has changed the animation of the particles.
They are unaffected by the Wind space warp
until you explicitly bind them to it.
Bind the wind space warp to the smoke particles:
1. Select the Super Spray particle system.
2. Click Bind To Space Warp, then click the
Super Spray system, and hold the button down
as you drag to the Wind space warp.
When Bind To Space Warp is active and the
cursor is over a selected object, the cursor
changes to the space warp icon to inform you
that this object can be bound to a space warp.
Then when you drag from the object to the
space warp, a line is drawn to show which object
is being bound. Once off the object, the cursor
changes again until it’s over a suitable space
warp. Then it reverts to the space warp icon to
inform you that this binding is legal. When you
release the mouse, the bound space warp briefly
highlights to indicate the binding is complete.
3. Activate the Camera02 viewport, then
play the animation.
The effect of the wind is much too strong. The
smoke is whipped around dramatically.
Adjust the strength of the wind:
By default, the Wind space warp’s Strength value is
1.0. Reducing the Strength value makes the effect
of the fan look more realistic.
1. Select the Wind space warp.
2. In the Modify panel, set the Strength
value to 0.03.
3. Activate the Camera02 viewport, then
play the animation.
The smoke is more gently wafted now. But
you can make the smoke’s appearance more
realistic still, by giving it a bit of inertia. To do
so, you use another space warp.

Add a drag space warp:
1. Go to the Create panel and click
the Space Warps button.
2. Make sure Forces is the active space warp type.
3. On the Object Type rollout, click Drag.
4. In the Top viewport, drag to create a Drag space
warp near the Super Spray.
Drag space warp created in the Top viewport
Set the drag space warp parameters:
The Drag space warp has a large number of
parameters. For the purposes of this animation,
you need to set only a few of them: Time Off, and
the Axis percentages for Linear Damping.
1. With the Drag space warp selected, go
to the Modify panel. Set Time Off to 300.
By default, the Time Off value is 100, but you
need Drag to be active for the duration of the
animation.
2. With Linear Damping the active damping type,
set the X and Y Axis percentages to 1.0, and the
Z Axis percentage to 2.0.
As with Wind, the Drag space warp doesn’t
affect the particles until you bind them to it.
Creating Cigarette Smoke 795
Bind the drag space warp to the smoke particles:
1. Click Bind To Space Warp, then in the
Top viewport click the Super Spray system, and
hold the button down as you drag to the Drag
space warp.
Now a drag force is applied to the particles. The
force is non-uniform: there is more drag along
the Z-axis (up and down in the scene) than in
other dimensions.
2. Activate the Camera02 viewport, then
play the animation.
The effect of the Wind space warp is decreased.
The Drag warp slows down the particles.
Add turbulence to the wind:
The smoke looks better, but its motion is still
unnaturally uniform. The solution is to make the
Wind more turbulent.
1. Select the Wind space warp.
2. On the Modify panel, go to the Wind
group box in the Parameters rollout. Set
Turbulence to 0.03, Frequency to 0.12, and
Scale to 0.1.
The Turbulence value controls how much the
particles are perturbed from their position.
Frequency causes random variation in the
turbulence, and Scale adjusts the size of the
turbulence field.
Why such low values? Actually, a good rule of
thumb for turbulence settings is to start very
low and work your way up. Turbulence creates
a fractal noise field that is localized to the Wind
space warp icon. The scale of this field needs to
match the scale of your scene. The easiest way
to do this is to start with low values and then
increase them as needed.
796 Chapter 8: Special Effects
3. Activate the Camera02 viewport, then
play the animation.
The particles move much more like cigarette
smoke, with wispy sways and curls.
Also, the particles are blown in the current
direction of the Wind space warp on a given
frame. The effect is not conical with attenuation
as it would be for an actual fan; instead, the
effect of the wind and its turbulence is parallel.
Particle Geometry
While the movement of the smoke is now good,
the particle geometry needs some adjusting.
Preview the particle system:
• Activate the Camera02 viewport, then
choose Animation > Make Preview. A Make
Preview dialog appears. Leave the settings
at their defaults, and click Create. A Video
Compression dialog appears. Use this dialog’s
default settings as well, and click OK.
When the preview completes, use Animation >
View Preview to view it as an AVI movie.
The particles still appear as a bunch of
solid-looking dots (by default, they render as 3D
triangles). To make them more convincing as
smoke, first you adjust the particle geometry, then
you apply an appropriate material to them.
Change the particle geometry:
1. Select the Super Spray particle system.
2. Go to the Modify panel.
3. If one of the space warp bindings is chosen in
the modifier stack, click the Super Spray entry
so you can see the particle system’s rollouts.
4. In the Particle Type rollout > Standard Particles
group, choose Facing.
Facings are square particles that are constantly
oriented towards the camera. If you rendered
them as solid, they wouldn’t appear realistic,
either. But facing particles are meant to have
a material applied to them. When facings are
clumped together and a material gives them a
degree of transparency, you can achieve a fairly
realistic smoke.
The size of the particles is uniform. In general,
when you want realistically to model natural
phenomena, you want to avoid uniformity.
Make the particle geometry more random:
Ideally, the particles should increase in size after
they are born, and then fade out as they die. The
Grow For and Fade For parameters let you do this.
Also, to break up the unrealistic uniformity of the
particle size, you need to add some variation to
the size.
1. With Super Spray still selected and the Modify
panel still active, go to the Particle Size group
near the bottom of the Particle Generation
rollout.
2. Set the Size to 2.0 and the Variation to 30 %.
3. Set the Grow For value to 90 and Fade For to 30.
In these last steps, you have increased the
overall size of the particles and randomized this
size by plus or minus 30 per cent. Each particle
now grows for 90 frames, from an initial size
of zero to the full size it will achieve. Thirty

frames before it dies, it begins to shrink back
down to a size of zero. (Remember that you
have set each particle to live for 180 frames.)
Cigarette Smoke Material
Now that you’ve adjusted the particle geometry,
you can shade the particles to look like smoke. The
trick to this is to use a soft, partially transparent
material that allows the particles to blend together
and form a wispy smoke pattern. Because the
particles are rendered as square facing geometry,
a radial gradient with transparent edges can
accomplish this.
Set up the material:
1. Open the Material Editor.
2. Choose an unused sample slot.
3. On the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, click
the Diffuse color swatch to display the Color
Selector.
4. Set the Diffuse color to pure white (Value=255).
5. Set both the Specular Level and Glossiness
values to 0.
6. Turn on the Self-Illumination Color check box.
The Self-Illumination control changes from a
spinner to a color swatch.
7. Click the Self-Illumination color swatch. In the
Color Selector, set the self-illumination color to
a medium gray (Value=144).
8. On the Shader Basic Parameters rollout, turn
on the Face Map toggle.
Use Face Map shading with Facing particles, so
that each rendered particle displays the entire
map.
You now have a material that is pure white,
partially self-illuminated with a medium gray
color, and face mapped for particles.
Creating Cigarette Smoke 797
Assign the material to the smoke particles:
• Click Assign Material To Selection, or drag
from the sample slot to the Super Spray particle
system.
A rendering would show that the smoke is now
more smoke-colored, but has hard, jagged
edges from the square facing particles.
Smoke particles without transparency appear too solid
and jaggy.
To soften the smoke, you create a radial gradient
with transparency at its edges.
Make a radial gradient map for the smoke particles:
1. In the Material Editor, open the Maps rollout
and click the Opacity map button.
2. In the Material/Map Browser, choose Browse
From: New, click Gradient, and then click OK.
3. On the Gradient Parameters rollout, change the
Gradient Type to Radial.
4. Click Go To Parent to return to the base
level of the material.
5. On the Maps rollout, change the Opacity
Amount value to 5.
The Gradient map determines only five per
cent of the opacity. Ninety-five percent of the
opacity is still controlled by the base Opacity
parameter. For smoke, make the particles as
798 Chapter 8: Special Effects

soft and semi-transparent as possible, especially this tutorial, a slightly different particle system,
with high particle counts. So the Gradient map PArray, emits particles from an object surface.
should be the only thing that sets the Opacity
of the particles, but you also want the overall
Opacity to be very low. For this animation, you
turn off the base Opacity value completely.
6. In the Basic Parameters rollout, set the Opacity
value to 0.
The rendered scene now has very soft smoke
that rises up, grows gradually in size, and is
blown around and perturbed by the wind from
the fan.

Animation techniques used in this tutorial:

• Emitting particles from geometry instead of
from a point in space.
• Using Track View and a Noise controller to
animate particle flow.
• Using motion blur to make the particles appear
more like water.
Time to complete: 45 minutes

The Final Animation Set up the scene:

You are now ready to activate the Camera02 • Open gushing_water.max.

viewport and render the entire animation.
Even at low resolution, this can take about half
an hour. Alternatively, you can play the file
cigarette_smoke.avi, provided on the Tutorial Files
CD.
Creating Gushing Water
This tutorial uses particles to simulate gushing
water. The techniques are similar to those in the
cigarette smoke tutorial (page 791), but include
some new methods. For example, in the cigarette
smoke tutorial, the Super Spray particle system
emitted particles from a single point in space. In
All the files necessary for this tutorial
are provided on the program disc in the
\tutorials\simple_particle_effects directory.
Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials
folder from the disc to your local program
installation.
This is a simple street scene with a brick wall,
sidewalk, street, and fire hydrant.
Creating a Stream of Water
To simulate water, the particles should be emitted
from the fire hydrant geometry. The PArray
particle system can do this.

Make a particle system that will be emitted from the
fire hydrant:
1. On the Create panel, make sure
Geometry is active. Choose Particle Systems
from the drop-down list.
2. Turn on PArray, then drag in the Right viewport
to create a PArray particle system.
PArray in Right viewport
PArray in Camera01 viewport
The placement of the PArray system doesn’t
matter, except for your convenience in selecting it.
If you drag the time slider or play the animation,
you’ll notice that no particles are emitted. PArray
requires you to specify an object from which the
particles are emitted.
Creating Gushing Water 799
Choose the fire hydrant nozzle as the particle
emitter:
1. With the PArray icon selected, go to the
Modify panel.
2. Click the Pick Object button at the top of the
Basic Parameters rollout.
3. Press H , and then choose Firehydrant-
nozzle01 in the Select Objects dialog. Click
Pick.
Now if you drag the time slider, you’ll notice
that particles shoot out in all directions. By
default, PArray emits particles from the entire
surface of the selected object, in the direction
of the polygons’ normals. (If the normals
were flipped, the particles would emit inward,
toward the center of the hydrant.)
For this scene, the particles should emit only
from the cap face at the end of the nozzle. To do
this, create a sub-object selection.
Create a sub-object selection to restrict particle
emission:
1. Select Firehydrant-nozzle01, and
then go to the Modify panel.
2. Choose Modifiers > Selection Modifiers >
Mesh Select.
3. Open the Mesh Select modifier’s hierarchy,
and choose Polygon as the active sub-object
level.
800 Chapter 8: Special Effects

4. Select the circular polygon at the end of

the cylinder used to model the nozzle.

Nozzle sub-object polygon selection in Camera01 viewport

Now you have a sub-object selection that the

PArray particle system can use.

Set the PArray to use the sub-object selection:

1. Click the Mesh Select entry in the modifier
stack display to turn off sub-object selection.

2. In a viewport, select the PArray icon.

3. On the Modify panel, go to the

Basic Parameters rollout, and in the Particle
Formation group, turn on Use Selected
SubObjects.
Nozzle sub-object polygon selection in Right viewport
Now particles are emitted from only the end of
the cylinder, as if it were an actual nozzle.

Adjust the particle generation parameters:

1. With the PArray still selected and the

Modify panel still active, go to the Particle
Generation rollout.
2. In the Particle Quantity group, set the Use Rate
value to 50.
 Creating Gushing Water 801

Now 50 particles per frame are emitted.

(Viewports preview only 10 percent of the
particles by default, so this change will be more
obvious when you render.)
3. In the Particle Motion group, set the Divergence
angle to 15 degrees.
This parameter controls how much the stream
of particles spreads. At a Divergence of zero,
particles are emitted in a straight line along the
normals of the emitter object.
Gravity in Top viewport
4. In the Particle Timing group, set the Emit Stop
value to 100.
In other words, particles are emitted for as long
as the animation lasts (100 frames).
5. Set the Life value to 100.
Particles should live for the duration of the
animation, too.

Using Space Warps to Control the Stream

To make the stream of particles behave more
effectively like water, you use two space warps:
a Gravity space warp to make the stream fall
realistically, and a Deflector space warp to model
the roadbed.
Gravity in Camera01 viewport

Add gravity to control the stream:
1. On the Create Panel, click Space
Warps.
2. With Forces the active space warp category,
click Gravity. Drag in the Top viewport to create
the space warp near the fire hydrant object.
By default, Gravity is exerted along the negative
Z axis (away from the viewer) in the viewport
where you create it. So using the Top viewport
to create Gravity makes it pull downward, as
one usually expects.
The default parameters for the Gravity space
warp are satisfactory, so you don’t need to adjust
them. Gravity is pretty straightforward: simply a
directional force with realistic acceleration.
Bind the gravity space warp to the particles:
1. Click Bind To Space Warp.
2. Drag from the PArray particle system to the
Gravity space warp. When the cursor changes
to notify you that the binding is legal, release
the mouse button.
The Gravity space warp highlights briefly to let
you know that the operation is complete.
802 Chapter 8: Special Effects
3. Now drag the time slider again.
Particles emitted from the nozzle are now
affected by gravity, and fall downwards.
Unfortunately, at this point they also fall
through the street. Renderable geometry does
not deflect particles. To model the street,
you’ll create a Deflector space warp to stop the
particles when they reach ground level.
Add a deflector at street level:
1. On the Create panel, click Space
Warps if necessary. Change the active space
warp category to Deflectors, and then click
Deflector.
2. Drag in the Top viewport to create the Deflector
space warp. This space warp’s icon should cover
the area covered by the Street and Curb objects.
It can extend beyond their bounds, as well.
Creating the Deflector in the Top viewport
ensures that it is created at ground level.
Unlike some kinds of space warps, the size and
location of the Deflector icon have an effect in
the scene. The deflector controls the region
where particles will be deflected. A deflector
doesn’t render, but its placement affects particle
interaction.
Deflector in top viewport
Bind the deflector to the particles:
1. Turn on Bind To Space Warp.
2. Drag from the PArray particle system to the
Deflector space warp. When the cursor changes
to notify you that the binding is legal, release
the mouse button.
The Deflector space warp highlights briefly to
let you know that the operation is complete.
3. Drag the time slider.
The PArray particles emit from the nozzle, fall
downward due to Gravity, and then bounce
off of the Deflector. At this point, the particles
bounce too much. In reality, when an object
bounces or reflects from an object, a certain
amount of energy is lost. Also, the particles
don’t come to rest but keep moving as if the
street object were a smooth sheet of glass. Both
of these problems can be corrected by adjusting
Deflector parameters.
4. Select the Deflector space warp if
necessary and go to the Modify panel.
5. In the Parameters rollout, change the Bounce
value to 0.2, and increase the Friction value to
10.0.
6. Drag the time slider.
Now particles reflect from the Deflector with
less velocity, and as they slide across its surface,
the increased friction makes them come to rest
eventually.
Modulating the Rate of Particle Emission
So far, the fire hydrant emits water in a steady
stream. This doesn’t look too realistic, because
gushing water tends to pulse. To simulate this, you
can animate the PArray system’s Speed parameter.
In this tutorial, you combine a Bezier Float
controller with a Noise controller to apply some

randomness to the Speed, creating a pulsating
motion.
Assign controllers to the Speed parameter:
1. Select the PArray particle system
in the viewport.
2. On the Modify panel > stack display, click the
PArray system to activate its controls, rather
than one of the space warp bindings.
Before and after selecting the PArray level
3. On the Particle Generation rollout, right-click
the PArray’s Speed value.
Warning: Don’t right-click the up/down arrows to
the right of the spinner. This resets the Speed to 0.0.
4. In the pop-up menu, choose Show In Track
View.
Track View opens to show the various
parameters for PArray.
Creating Gushing Water 803
5. Locate the Speed parameter for the PArray
Object by expanding Object (PArray).
Tip: If you can’t locate PArray01 in the Track
View dialog, choose Display > Filters, and
assure that Objects is selected in the Show
group of the Filters dialog.
6. With the Speed parameter chosen, choose
Controller > Assign. Choose Bezier Float from
the Assign Float Controller dialog.
The Bezier Float controller inherits a value
of 10 from the original Speed setting. You
can actually keyframe this value, but in this
animation there is no need to do so.
7. Choose Controller > Assign again, and choose
Float List from the Assign Float Controller
dialog.
Float List is a List controller that combines
controller values. If you expand the Speed
hierarchy in Track View, a track labeled
Available appears at the bottom of the Speed
tracks. This is where you add new controllers
to the list.
8. Click the Available track to highlight it, then
choose Controller > Assign once more, and
choose Noise Float from the Assign Float
Controller dialog.
9. The List Controller dialog appears. Dismiss it,
and select the Noise Float: Noise Float item in
Trackview.
10. Right-click Noise Float: Noise Float and select
Properties from the quad menu.
The Noise Controller dialog appears.
804 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Adjust the Noise parameters:
The Noise controller can generate a randomly
pulsating motion. The default settings for Noise
don’t accomplish this, so you need to adjust them.
1. On the Noise Controller dialog, change the
settings as follows:
• Set the Frequency to 0.2. This makes the
noise more undulating and less jittery.
• Turn off Fractal Noise. This too makes the
noise smoother by making value changes
less abrupt.
• Turn on the toggle labeled > 0. This
constrains the value to be greater than
zero. In terms of the Speed parameter,
less-than-zero values would be rounded
to zero, causing particles to have no speed
when they are emitted.
• Set the Strength value to 10.0. This
constrains the value to be no greater than
20. The Speed value will range between 10
and 20.
2. Close the Noise Controller dialog.
3. Close the List Controller dialog that appears.
Notice that there is still an Available track at the
bottom of the Speed hierarchy. You can add as
many controllers to the list as you want. This
can be a powerful technique.
Combining the Noise controller with Bezier
Float gives you more control over the variation.
Specifically, the Noise value modifies the
Bezier value. With a Bezier value of 10 and a
Noise range of 10, the result of the Float List
potentially will range between 10 and 20, at a
mean of 15. (It actually ranges from less than
12 to approximately 18.)
Note: You can achieve a similar effect by using
the PArray Variation parameter for particle
motion, but the controllers give you more
control and eliminate the need for keyframing.
4. Close Track View.
Preview the animation:
• Activate the Camera01 viewport, and
then click Play.
Now particles are emitted with a more realistic
pulsing motion, with spurts here and there.
The animation is now ready to render, except that
the water particles need an appropriate material.
Creating a Water Material
For gushing water, you want a material that
appears like foamy water. This material is similar
to the material you created for smoke. Facing
particles with a soft radial gradient map causes
rendered particles to blend together into a foamy
stream that approximates the look of water.
Set up particles to render as facing geometry:
1. Select the PArray particle system
and go to the Modify panel.
 Creating Gushing Water 805

2. In the Particle Type rollout, go to the Standard

Particles group, and choose Facing.
3. In the Particle Generation rollout, go to the
Particle Size group. Set the Size value to 4.0,
and the Variation value to 25.0 %.
If you render the scene right now you see that
the particles are displayed as square facings. As
with smoke, you need to soften their edges to
make them appear more amorphous.
4. Click Go To Parent to return to the parent
material. In the Maps rollout, click the Diffuse
map button.
5. In the Material/Map Browser, choose a Mask
map, and then click OK.
6. In the Mask Parameters rollout, click the Mask
button.
7. In the Material/Map Browser, choose a Gradient
map, and then click OK.
8. In the Gradient Parameters rollout for the new
gradient map, set the Gradient Type to Radial.

Turn on face mapping to match the particle system:

• Click the Go To Parent button to return

Create the material:
1. Open the Material Editor and select an
unused sample slot.
2. Click the Diffuse color swatch to display the
Color Selector, and change the diffuse color
to blue-gray (for example, R=150, G=181,
B=205).
3. Make the material very glossy by setting the
Specular Level to 131 and the Glossiness to 63.
to the parent material. In the Shader Basic
Parameters rollout, turn on Face Map.
If Face Map is turned off, the facing particles
still retain their sharp edges. This is because, by
default, particles read gradient maps over time,
not at once as for other kinds of geometry.
Assign the material:
• Assign this new material to the PArray
particle system.
Now when you render the scene, the particles
are blended together quite nicely.

Apply maps to control the material’s opacity:

1. Open the Maps rollout and click the Opacity
map button.
2. In the Material/Map Browser, choose a Gradient
map, and then click OK.
3. In the Gradient Parameters rollout, set the
Gradient Type to Radial.
806 Chapter 8: Special Effects
The particles still look a bit "blobby," for water. To
improve this, you can use Image Motion Blur.
Adding Motion Blur
There are several ways to generate motion blur in
3ds Max. For the water from the hydrant, you use
the method called Image Motion Blur.
Assign Image Motion Blur to the PArray:
1. Select the PArray particle system, and
then right-click it.
2. Choose Properties from the quad menu
(lower-right, Transform quadrant).
3. In the Motion Blur group of the Object
Properties dialog, set the blur type to Image,
and make sure Enabled is turned on. Click OK.
The scene is now complete.
The Final Animation
You are now ready to activate the Camera01
viewport and render the entire animation.
Even at low resolution, this can take about half
an hour. Alternatively, you can play the file
gushing_water.avi, provided on the program disc.
Particle Flow
In these tutorials, you’ll learn how to use the
Particle Flow particle system in 3ds Max to create
special effects such as water splashing, mist
blowing, the explosive impact of an asteroid into a
planet surface, guided missiles trailing smoke and
blowing up targets, and more.
Features Covered in This Section
Among the 3ds Max features covered in these
tutorials are the following:
• Spawning particles upon collision with a
deflector.
• Changing particle type based on test results.
• Applying forces such as gravity and drag to
particles.
• Using scripting with an event-driven particle
system.
• Using materials with particles.
Files for This Section
All the files necessary for this tutorial
are provided on the program disc in the
\tutorials\particle_effects directory. Before
starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder
from the disc to your local program installation.
Tutorials in this Section
Introductory Tutorial (page 807)
Modeling Whipped Cream (page 813)
 Introductory Tutorial 807

Introductory Tutorial
The best way to understand Particle Flow is by
using it. This tutorial will acquaint you with some
of the basic methods of working with Particle Flow.

Create the Particle Flow system:

1. Start 3ds Max or reset the program.
2. On the Create panel > Geometry category, click
the drop-down list and choose Particle Systems.

3. On the Object Type rollout, click PF Source.

4. In the Perspective viewport, drag out a
By default, the icon emits particles downward
rectangle.
from its entire surface. In the viewport, the
particles appear as ticks.
6. Go to frame 10, and press Shift+Q to render
the Perspective viewport.

This is the Particle Flow icon, or source, named

PF Source 01. By default, it acts as an emitter,
but you can also use any other object as an
emitter.
5. Drag the time slider.
808 Chapter 8: Special Effects
The rendered particles appear in a window.
The default particle shape is a tetrahedron, a
four-sided triangular solid. Its geometry is
very simple, so the system can handle many
particles quickly and efficiently, but it gives a
good idea of how particles are behaving. Other
basic shapes are a low-poly sphere and a cube;
Particle Flow also lets you use any scene object
as particle geometry.
Modify the particle system in Particle View:
1. Press the 6 key to open Particle View. The
particle source icon need not be selected.
Tip: You can also open Particle View from the
command panel when a Particle Flow source
icon is selected.
1. Event display
2. Particle diagram
3. Global event
4. Birth event
5. Depot
Particle View is where you manage and edit
the particle system. The main window, known
as the event display, contains the particle
diagram, which describes the particle system.
The default system starts with a global event,
with the same name as the Particle Flow icon,
followed by a birth event, containing a Birth
operator and several others that define the
system’s initial properties. Each operator’s
name is followed by its most important setting
or settings in parentheses. Above the event
display is a menu bar, and below is the depot,
containing all operators available for use in the
particle system. For more information about
this dialog, see Particle View.
 Introductory Tutorial 809

2. In the global event, PF Source 01, click the

name of the Render 01 (Geometry) operator to
highlight it and access its parameters. Be sure
to click the text area; clicking the icon simply
toggles the operator’s active state.
Because this operator is in the global event, it
affects the entire particle system. Any operator
you place here does likewise. For example, you
can define a global material here, or you can
define different materials locally in each event.
For best results, don’t combine global and local
operators of the same type in a single system;
Now the particles appear as tetrahedrons in the
use one or the other.
viewports.

Wire two events together:

Next, you’ll add a test and use it to wire the birth
event to a new event.
1. In the depot at the bottom of the Particle View
dialog, find Age Test. It’s the first item that uses
a yellow, diamond-shaped icon.

The settings for the Render operator appear in

a rollout on the parameters panel, on the right
side of the Particle View dialog. These include a
drop-down list for how particles are to render,
the percentage of particles that will render, and
how to split up the particles into individual
meshes.
Next, you’ll change the particle display type.
3. In the birth event, Event 01, click the Display 01
(Ticks) operator at the bottom of the list.
The display type is set to Ticks, as noted in the
operator name in the event.
2. Drag an Age Test from the depot into the Event
4. Next to the Type label, click Ticks, and from the
01 list, at the bottom of the list.
drop-down list, choose Geometry.
810 Chapter 8: Special Effects

Before you release the mouse button, make sure The test type is Particle Age, so this means that
you see a solid blue line in Event 01 under the all particles that have existed for more than 15
Display operator. If the line is red and goes frames will test True, and be passed on to the
through an existing operator, the Age Test will next event.
replace that operator. If you drop the Age Test Next, you’ll create a new event and wire it to the
outside of Event 01 it will create a new event. test.
4. From the depot, drag the Shape operator
(“Shape”) to an empty part of the event display,
below Event 01.

Age Test appears in the list, with its test output

sticking out to the left. This is the part you use
to connect the test to the next event.
3. Click the Age Test item in the list, and then
in the Age Test 01 rollout on the right side
of Particle View, set Test Value=15 and
Variation=0.
 Introductory Tutorial 811

The actual location of an event in the event

display doesn’t matter; the recommended
placement is for the sake of convenience when
wiring the events. It also helps to make sense of
complex schematics if the events are arranged
logically.
You can move an event by dragging its title bar.
Next, you’ll perform the actual wiring of the
Age Test to the new event.
5. Position the mouse cursor over the blue dot at
the left end of the Age Test’s test output.
The cursor image changes to an icon depicting
three arrows pointing inward toward a circular
connector.
6. Drag from the event output on the Age Test in
Event 01 to the Event 02 input, and then release
the mouse button.

The Shape operator appears in a new event,

named Event 02. Like Event 01, the event has a
circular event input sticking out from the top.
Also, Particle Flow automatically adds a local
Display operator to the event so its particles will
be visible in the viewports. You can disable the
automatic creation of local Display operators
by choosing Options menu > Default Display
> Global.
812 Chapter 8: Special Effects
As you drag, the cursor image changes from
a three-arrow icon to a circular connector by
itself when it’s over an empty space in the event
display area, and then to a four-arrow icon
when it’s over the Event 02 input.
When you release the mouse button, a blue
“wire” appears connecting the two events. This
wire indicates that particles that meet the Age
Test conditions will pass “through” this wire to
Event 02, to be affected by its actions.
Tip: You can delete a wire (and anything else
in the particle diagram) by selecting it and
pressing the Delete key. Feel free to try
this now, but undo any changes when you’re
finished.
7. Click the Shape 02 operator and set
Shape=Cube. Also, click the Display 02
operator and set Type=Geometry.
View the wiring results:
1. Play the animation. Adjust the viewports so you
can see the entire particle stream, if necessary.
Starting at frame 16, the particles at the head
of the stream change into cubes, indicating
that they’ve entered Event 02. As time goes on,
more and more particles pass the age of 15 and
become eligible to go to the next event.
2. While the animation is playing, try modifying
the different operator settings to see what
happens. For instance, click Speed 01 and

change the Speed and Direction settings. When
you change a setting, the change is reflected
in the viewports in real time, even during
playback.
Try right-clicking actions and events and using
Rename to give them custom names. Even with
a custom name, an action’s tooltip reveals its
type.
Another facility of the right-click menu is to
add comments to actions and events. Once
you do so, a small red triangle indicates the
comment’s presence.
Congratulations! You now have a working
knowledge of Particle Flow. If you’d like to try
some more tutorials, go to the Particle Flow
tutorials.
BlobMesh is a compound object in 3ds Max that
creates a set of spheres from geometry, shapes, or
particles, and connects the resulting mesh together
as if the spheres were made of a soft substance.
When the spheres are animated and come within
a certain distance of one another, they connect
together. When they move apart, they become
spheres again.
BlobMesh is particularly powerful with particle
systems such as Particle Flow, where you can use it
to make the particles appear thick and viscous.
Modeling Whipped Cream 813
Here, you will use an existing particle flow
animation, and add BlobMesh to the particles to
make them look like a thick, liquid substance.
Set up for this lesson:
1. Open the file tut_blobmesh_start.max from the
tutorials\blobmesh folder.
This file contains animation of a can of
whipped cream spraying particles onto a bowl
of strawberries.
2. Play the animation.
The particles are tetrahedrons. There are
deflectors on the strawberries, the bowl, and
the tabletop, and the particles are set up to stop
moving when they hit any deflector.
Create the blobmesh:
1. Choose Create panel > Geometry
> Compound Objects.
2. Click BlobMesh, and click anywhere in the
scene to create one blobmesh sphere.
3. Go to the Modify panel.
4. In the Parameters rollout > Blob Objects group,
click Add. Select PF Source 01, then click Add
Blobs.
814 Chapter 8: Special Effects

This adds the particles to the blobmesh object.

5. Play the animation.
The particles are replaced by blobs. The blobs
obtain their sizes from the particle sizes.
In the viewport, some of the smaller particles
will appear not to be surrounded by blobs. This
is because BlobMesh uses a different level of
detail for viewports and renderings.
6. Press M to open the Material Editor. Select
the material named Whipped Cream, and drag
it over BlobMesh01 in the scene.
Tip: You can add a Relax modifier to the
BlobMesh01 object to make the blobs look
softer.
You can find a finished version of this scene in
the file tut_blobmesh_finish.max. You can also
see an animation created with this scene in the
file tut_whippedcream.mov.

Summary
The BlobMesh compound object provides an easy
way to make soft, liquid substances, especially
when used in conjunction with a particle system.

The whipped cream changes in the viewport

when the material is assigned to it.
7. Render a frame to see how the blobs look in the
final rendering.
 Creating the Sun with a Lens Flare 815

Adding a Camera View

Creating the Sun with a Lens
Set up your scene:
Flare
Files for this tutorial are in the \tutorials\lens_flares
directory.
1. On the File menu choose Open, and then
choose tut_marsandsun.max.
2. Activate the Top viewport and zoom out.

3. On the Create panel, click the Cameras

icon and click Target in the Object Type rollout.
4. Click near the bottom of the Top viewport, drag
toward Mars, and release.

In this tutorial, you’ll create a glowing sun using

Lens Flare, Glow, and Star.
Skill Level: Intermediate
Time to complete: 30 minutes

Features Covered in this Tutorial

• Creating and manipulating a camera viewport
• Using omni lights to light your scene
• Creating and manipulating a Glow lens effect
• Using multiple Glow lens effects to create an
ambient lighting effect
• Creating and manipulating a Ring lens effect
• Creating and manipulating a Star lens effect

Tutorial Files
All the files necessary for this tutorial are provided This creates a target camera pointing at the
on the program disc in the \tutorials\lens_flares center of Mars.
directory. Before starting the tutorials, copy
5. Activate the Perspective viewport. Change it to
the \tutorials folder from the disc to your local
a camera viewport by pressing C .
program installation.
816 Chapter 8: Special Effects

6. Click Truck Camera. In the Camera

viewport, pan the viewport to the left so there
is space for the sun on the right side of Mars.

Adding Lights
There are no lights in the scene. In this step, you’ll
add two Omni lights: one to light Mars, and the
other to be the Sun.

Light your scene:

1. From the Create menu, choose Lights >
Standard Lights > Omni.
4. Select Sun and at the top of the Modify panel,
2. In the Top viewport, click to create an Omni click the color swatch. The Color Selector
light to the right and below Mars. Name it appears. Change the color to a yellow-orange
marslight. and click OK.
3. Create a second omni light to the right and Note: Both lights are adding illumination to
above Mars. Name it Sun. the scene. With the camera in front of Mars,
the lighting of the sun doesn’t really add to the
illumination on the dark side of the planet. If
this becomes a problem later, you can exclude
this light from illuminating any objects in the
scene.
5. Move marslight left or right to create a lighting
effect you like for the dark side of Mars.
Now use contrast to add some drama to your
light.
 Adding a Glow to the Sun Using Lens Effects 817

6. In the Modify panel, go to the Advanced Effects 2. Go to the Modify panel and click the
rollout > Affect Surfaces group, and increase Atmospheres & Effects rollout title to open it.
the Contrast setting for marslight to 77.
You won’t see the changes until you render the
scene.

7. Activate the Camera viewport, then on

the toolbar, click the Quick Render button.

3. Click the Add button. The Add Atmosphere Or

Effect dialog appears.

You still don’t see the light that will be your Sun
in the rendered image. It won’t appear until you
add effects in the next topic.
Tip: Try different contrast values and render
each one. The higher the value, the sharper the
edge of the light.

Adding a Glow to the Sun Using

Lens Effects 4. In the list, click Lens Effects, and then click OK.

In this topic, you’ll create a simple glow effect and Lens Effects is now listed in the Atmospherics
add a ring and a star effect to it. This will allow the and Effects window.
Sun to glow in the sky above the planet.
You can add as many different effects as you like
to create the sun’s glow. Try this effect, and then
experiment with others.

Create a glow effect:

1. In the Camera viewport, select the Omni light
named Sun.
818 Chapter 8: Special Effects

5. Click the Lens Effects name in the window and

click Setup.
The Environment and Effects dialog appears.

6. In the Name field, name this lens effect Sun.

The name is changed in the windows in the
rollout and the dialog.
7. In the Preview group, turn on Interactive.
A rendered frame window appears. This lets
you see the lens effect as you make changes.
 Adding a Ring Effect 819

Tip: You should turn off Interactive when

working in a complex scene, but it’s useful for
experimentation.
8. On the Lens Effects Parameters rollout, choose
Glow in the list on the left. Click the right arrow
to move the effect into the list on the right.

After a brief delay, the light source appears as a

glowing sphere in the virtual frame buffer.
9. Scroll down to the Glow Element rollout. In the
Name field, enter Main Sun.
To change the look of your Sun, try the
following settings in the Glow Element rollout:
• Set Size to 50.0.
• Set Intensity to 200.0, producing a very
bright glow.
• Set Use Source Color to 50.0.
• In the Circular Color group, set Mix to 50.0,
giving the Sun a soft red glow.

Tip: With Interactive on, you’ll get faster

results by changing numeric settings with
the keyboard, rather than using the spinners.

Adding a Ring Effect

Now you’ll add a ring effect to the Sun’s glow.

Enhance your sun with a ring effect:

1. In the Effects tab of the Environment and
Effects dialog, scroll up to the Lens Effects
820 Chapter 8: Special Effects

Parameters rollout. Choose Ring and move it
to the list on the right. A ring appears around
the Main Sun in the Effects Preview window.
1. Increase the intensity of the Ring Element to
133.0.
2. Lower the size of the ring to 14.0.
3. Increase the thickness of the ring to 65.0.
4. Turn on Glow Behind to place the glow from
the Sun behind the planet.
Now the Sun looks more realistic.

2. Scroll down to the Ring Element rollout and

make the following settings to define the ring:
• Set Size to 22.0.
• Set Thickness to 33.0, giving the ring more
of a glowing perimeter. Adding a Star Effect
• Set Use Source Color to 50.0. Now you will add a star effect to the Sun’s glow.

Add a star effect to your sun:

1. In the Effects tab of the Environment and
Effects dialog, scroll up to the Lens Effects
Parameters rollout. Choose Star from the
effects list and move it to the list on the right.
A Star effect appears over the Main Sun in the
Effects Preview window.

These changes make the ring more

dramatic-looking, but it still needs some
intensity to make it look like a glowing Sun.

Adjust the ring effect:

By increasing the intensity of the main glow and
juggling the size and thickness of the ring, you can
control the size of the white-hot center of the sun.

2. Scroll down to the Star Element rollout, and set
the following:
• Set Qty (the number of points in the star)
to 8.
• Set Intensity to 50.0
• Set Sharp to 5.0.
• Turn on Glow Behind.
• Experiment with Width and Taper before
setting them to 1.0 and 0.1, respectively.
You might find that your effects are incorrect if
the Sun moves behind the planet. You can fix
this by adjusting the effect’s Occlusion settings.
Adding Another Glow 821
Improve the star effect by adjusting occlusion
settings:
1. In the Camera viewport, move the Sun omni
light so it’s just on the edge of the planet.
Because Interactive is turned on, the rendered
frame window updates automatically.
2. Go to the Lens Effects Parameters rollout and
select main sun from the right-hand window.
3. Scroll down to the Glow Element rollout and
set Occlusion to 0.0.
4. Return to the Lens Effects Parameters rollout
and select Ring from the effects list in the
right-hand window.
5. Scroll down to the Ring Elements rollout and
set Occlusion to 0.0.
Adding Another Glow
The effects you’ve added to the Sun have included
the Glow Behind option, so they are not adding a
glow to the planet, which is in front of the light.
Now that your Sun is glowing in the sky, you need
to add glow to the planet itself.
Add a second glow to your scene:
1. Select the planet in a viewport. Right-click and
choose Properties in the Transform quadrant
of the quad menu.
822 Chapter 8: Special Effects

2. In the Objects Properties dialog > G-Buffer

group, change Object Channel to 1 and click
OK to close the dialog.

3. In the Environment and Effects dialog > Lens

Effects Parameters rollout, add another Glow to
the list of effects.
Note: If you closed this dialog you need to
select the Sun omni light and click Setup on the Tip: If the planet is still shadowy, move the
Atmospheres & Effects rollout. marslight closer to the planet in the Top
4. In the Glow Element rollout, rename this effect viewport.
Glow on Planet.
Make global adjustments:
5. Click the Options tab and in the Image Sources
group, turn on Object ID. On the Lens Effect Globals rollout, you can make
global adjustments to control the whole effect.
Notice that the number is set to 1 by default.
1. Experiment to see what happens when you
The planet now renders with a bright white
change Size to 11.0, 22.0, and 33.0.
glow. This is too intense.
As an additional exercise, try animating the
effects’ settings.
2. Save the scene as mymarsandsun.max.

Summary
This tutorial has shown how to create Glow, Ring,
and Star lens effects, and how to adjust their
settings. It also showed how multiple Glow effects
can create the effect of ambient lighting, how to
create and navigate a camera viewport, and the use
of omni lights for scene illumination.

6. Click the Parameters tab. Set Occlusion to 0.0

and turn off Glow Behind.
7. Change Intensity to 45.0 and Source Color to
50.0. Creating and Animating a
8. In the Radial Color section, change the white Flying Logo
color swatch to a darker brick red.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn to create a flying
The planet is looking better now. logo for a fictitious company named Worldwide

Designs. Using shapes, modifiers, lighting effects
and Video Post, you produce an animated logo.
Skill Level: Beginner
Time to complete: 15 minutes
Features Covered in This Tutorial
• Creating and rotating a globe.
• Bending 3D text.
• Setting up a volume light.
• Creating fog.
Time to complete: 1 hour
Files for This Tutorial
All the files necessary for this tutorial
are provided on the program disc in the
\tutorials\worldwide_designs directory. Before
starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder
from the disc to your local program installation.
Creating the Earth Using Textures
You will create a sphere and apply a texture map to
create the illusion of a globe.
Create the earth object:
1. Start or Reset 3ds Max.
2. Open the Create panel and click Sphere.
Creating the Earth Using Textures 823
3. In the Perspective viewport, move your cursor
over the center of the grid, then drag out a
sphere.
4. On the Parameters rollout of the Modify panel,
change Radius to 5.0.
5. In the Viewport Navigation Controls, click
Zoom Extents Selected.
6. On the Name and Color rollout, change the
name of the sphere to Planet Earth.
Create the earth material:
1. On the toolbar, click the Material Editor
button or press M on the keyboard to open
the Material Editor.
The Material Editor opens in a floating window.
The first material is active, highlighted in white.
2. Rename the material Planet Earth.
3. Click the Assign Material To Selection
button.
4. In the Material Editor, open the Maps Rollout,
then in the Maps column, click the Diffuse Map
labeled None.
5. In the Material/Map Browser, on the right hand
column double-click Bitmap. In the Select
824 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Bitmap Image dialog, navigate to and open
\tutorials\worldwide_designs\earthmap.bmp.
Bitmap texture for the planet
The material in the Material Editor now
displays the earth map on a sphere.
Texture displayed on material sample
6. Double-click the sample sphere if you want to
see the material in a larger window.
7. On the Material Editor toolbar, click the
Show Map In Viewport button.
8. Save your scene as wwdesigns.max.
Animating the Rotation of the
Globe
You’ll only have to set one rotational key to create
the illusion of the earth spinning. You build the
animation over a hundred frames and rotate the
sphere a full 360 degrees using a TCB Rotation
controller and the Rotation Windup command.
This creates the effect of an endless looping
animation.
Setup:
• Continue from the previous lesson, or open
\tutorials\worldwide_designs\tut_wwdesigns_
globe.max.
Keyframe the earth rotation:
1. Select the sphere and open the Motion panel.
In the Assign Controller rollout, select Rotation
: Euler XYZ in the Transform Rotation list.
Note: Euler XYZ rotation controllers are the
default, but here you will switch to a different
rotation controller that lets you use the rotation
windup command.
2. Click the Assign Controller button to open
the Assign Rotation Controller dialog. Select
TCB Rotation from the list
3. At the bottom of the Key Info rollout, turn on
Rotation windup
Important: You must turn on Rotation Windup or
else the animation won’t work correctly.
4. Turn on Auto Key.

The Auto Key button turns red and the active
viewport is outlined in red to remind you that
now you are in Auto Key animation mode.
5. Move the time slider to frame 100.
6. Press A on the keyboard to turn on Angle
Snap.
This will make it easy to rotation an exact
amount.
7. On the toolbar, turn on Select And
Rotate.
The rotate gizmo displays on the sphere in the
viewport.
Tip: To increase the size of the transform gizmo,
press the + key on the keyboard.
The rotation gizmo displays on the sphere
8. Move your mouse over the blue Z axis ring of
the Rotate gizmo in the viewport. Rotate the
planet about the Z axis, watching the value
change in the coordinate onscreen readout in
the viewport. Stop when you see 360.
9. Turn off Auto Key.
10. Play the animation.
The sphere rotates smoothly in a
counterclockwise direction.
Adding the Text for the Logo 825
The next step is to rotate the earth’s axis to give
it a realistic tilt.
11. While Select And Rotate is still active, move
your cursor over the rotate gizmo in the
viewport. When the Y axis turns yellow, rotate
the earth approximately –15 degrees about the
Y axis so the earth is tilted.
Because Auto Key is off, this rotation affects the
entire animation.
12. Save your work as mywwdesigns02.max.
Tilted earth
You’ll notice the square selection brackets are tilted
along with the texture, but the transform gizmo
remains the same. That is because it is displaying
the View Coordinate system.
Adding the Text for the Logo
You’ll now create the flying logo by modeling
the three dimensional text using spline objects.
Later, you’ll add an extrude modifier and a Bend
modifier to create the desired text effect.
826 Chapter 8: Special Effects

Setup:
7. Click the Zoom Extents to zoom in the
• Continue from the previous lesson, or open Front viewport.
\tutorials\worldwide_designs\tut_wwdesigns_
glode_rotating.max. Add extrude and bend modifiers:

Create a text object:

Now add Extrude and Bend modifiers.

1. Activate the Front viewport, then right-click

1. With the Text selected, choose Modifiers >
the viewport label and choose Smooth + Object–Space Modifiers > Extrude. In the
Highlights to see the earth in shaded mode. Parameters rollout, set the Extrude amount to
0.5.
2. Zoom back in the viewport so the globe is 2. Click the color swatch next to the name of the
small but visible. text, Text01. In the Color Selector, choose
white.
3. Open the Create panel > Shapes and in the
object type rollout, click Text. Click above the
earth in the viewport to place the default text.
4. In the Parameters rollout, go to the Text field
and type Worldwide Designs.
Tip: You can also copy and paste text into this The text turns white in the viewport.
field.
3. In the Front viewport, move the text down so
5. Click the Font drop-down arrow, and change that it intersects with the sphere (globe). The
the font to something boxy like SansSerif Bold. text still looks too big, so select the Text in the
If you don’t have that font, use anything else modifier stack, and then change Size to 3.0.
that’s not too narrow.
Tip: You can type the first letter of the font to
quickly find it in the list.
6. Change the Text Size from 100 to 5.0.

The text moved to bisect the earth sphere

4. Click Extrude in the modifier stack and apply

a Bend modifier from the Modifier List >
Object-Space Modifiers.
You’ll use this to bend the text around the earth.
Worldwide Designs Text
 Adding the Text for the Logo 827

5. In the Parameters rollout, change the Bend Axis

to X, then set the Bend Angle to 180.
6. Activate the Top viewport. Zoom in on the
earth and text if necessary.
7. Move the text down in the Top viewport, as
shown in the illustration.

Pivot point of text object aligned to planet earth object

5. Turn off Affect Pivot Only.

6. In the Front viewport, rotate the text about the
Y axis so that it matches the tilt of the planet.
The text is moved down in the Top viewport As you rotate the text, you can refer to the
onscreen coordinate readout in the viewport.
8. Right-click the Top viewport label and choose
7. On the toolbar, set the Reference Coordinate
Smooth + Highlights.
System to Local.
9. Save the scene as mywwdesigns03.max.

Adjust the pivot point:

1. With the text selected, open the Hierarchy
panel, then in the Adjust Pivot rollout, turn on
Affect Pivot Only.
The pivot point of the text object is displayed
as a tripod.
2. On the Tools menu, choose Align, then click
the earth sphere object in the viewport. This
displays the Align Selection dialog.
3. In the Align Position (Screen) group, turn on
X, Y, and Z.
Rotated text matches the tilt of the earth
4. Set both the Current Object and Target Object
to Pivot Point. Click OK. Now you can finally animate the text rotating
around the planet. You’ll set it going in the
The pivot point is aligned to the center of the
opposite direction from the way the earth spins.
earth sphere object.
828 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Animate the text:
1. Make sure Text01 is still selected,
then open the Motion panel. In the Assign
Controller rollout, choose Rotation in the
Transform Position list.
2. Click the Assign Controller button to open
the Assign Rotation Controller dialog. Choose
TCB Rotation from the list.
3. At the bottom of the Key Info rollout, turn on
Rotation Windup.
4. At frame 0, turn on the Auto Key
button and rotate the text around the Y axis
until the text is behind the sphere.
No key will be created, yet.
Rotation for text at frame 0
5. Move the time slider to frame 100, then rotate
the text around the Y axis-360 degrees.
You now have keys at frame 0 and frame 100.
6. On the Key Info rollout, set Continuity to 0.
If Continuity is not displayed in the Key Info
rollout, click the Rotation button in the PRS
Parameters rollout.
This allows the text to rotate around the earth
at a continuous rate of speed.
7. On the Key Info rollout, move to key number 1
using the arrows, then set Continuity to 0.
8. Turn off Auto Key and play the
animation. The rotation of the text and
earth sphere should be smooth and loop
continuously.
Next, you’ll add a couple of lights for dramatic
effect.
9. Activate the Top viewport and Zoom out
so you see some empty space around the Earth.
10. In the Create panel, choose Lights
and click Omni. Then in the Top viewport, set
a light in front of and another light behind the
planet.
Add lights for drama.
11. Save your work as mywwdesign04.max.
Adding a Background and a
Material
You’ll make the scene more interesting by simply
adding a background that makes the earth sphere
appear to be in outer space. You’ll then add a shiny
gold material to the logo text for more impact.
 Adding a Spotlight 829

Set up the scene: The text is now gold.

• Continue from before, or open 5. Render the scene.
tut_wwdesigns_globe_text_rotating.max.

Add a background:
1. Open the Rendering menu > Environment.
2. Click the Environment Map button. In the
Material/Map Browser, double-click Bitmap.
Navigate to \tutorials\worldwide_designs and
choose stars10.jpg.
This is a large high resolution starfield
background.
3. Move the time slider to frame 50.
Golden text

4. Activate the Perspective viewport and

click the Quick Render button.
The image renders with the Earth in front of
the stars.
Warning: If you’ve set your rendering resolution to
something too small you won’t see the stars in the
rendering. You need to render at 640 x 480 to really
see the stars in this background image file.
The next step is to make the logo text more
interesting.
Add a material to the text:
1. On the main toolbar, click the Material
Editor button. Click an unused sample sphere.
2. Click the Get Material button. In the
Browse From group, click Mtl Library, then
double-click Metal_Dark_Gold [Standard] .
The sample sphere displays a shiny gold
material.
3. Make sure Text01 is selected, click the
Assign Material to Selection button.
6. Save your work to an incremental file
name. Choose File > Save As. Click the
incremental save button.
Now, you’ll add a spotlight that will illuminate
each letter of the logo as it rotates.
Adding a Spotlight
• Continue from before or open
tut_wwdesigns_globe_text_bground.max.
Create a spotlight:
You’ll add a target spotlight that casts a focused
beam of light onto each letter of the logo as it
rotates. The target in this case is the earth so that
you can easily align the beam of light to the logo
text.
1. In the Top viewport, slide the time slider to
frame 50 so that the logo text is rotated around
the lower half of the earth sphere.
Note: The illustrations display the text in white,
not gold.

4. Click the Show Map in Viewport button.

830 Chapter 8: Special Effects
2. Go to the Create panel > Lights and click
Target Spot.
3. In the Top viewport, click below the logo text
and drag upwards until the light cone touches
the edge of the sphere.
4. Go to the Modify Panel. The Spotlight name
appears at the top of the panel. On the Spotlight
Parameters rollout use the Falloff/Field spinner
to narrow the beam of light. Try changing the
Field to 7.0.
5. Select the spotlight target.
Tip: If it’s difficult to select the spotlight target,
type H on the keyboard. In the Select Objects
dialog, select Spot01.Target.
6. Select Tools menu > Align and click the earth
sphere.
7. In the Align Position (Local) group, click X, Y
and Z Positions. For Current Object and Target
Object, click Center. Click OK.
The spotlight target is now aligned to the center
of the sphere so that the light shines on the text
logo.
Spot01. Open
8. Select the spotlight source,
the Modify panel and click Exclude from the
General parameters rollout.
9. Select the object Planet Earth from the Scene
Objects list, and then click the >> button. Click
OK.
This prevents the spotlight from illuminating
the earth sphere.
10. Right-click the Perspective viewport label and
select Views > ActiveShade to see how the light
illuminates the text.
You’ll probably need to adjust the spotlight
target further so that the light illuminates only
one letter at a time.
11. Right-click in an empty place in the viewport
and select Close from the upper–left quadrant
menu.

12. With the Modify panel still active, scroll
the rollouts until you can see the Spotlight
Parameters rollout. In the Light Cone group,
make sure Circle is turned on.
13. Experiment with different values for
Hotspot/Beam and Falloff/Field until the size of
the light beam is focused on only one letter.
Target spot illuminating the letter R
14. In the Perspective viewport, play the animation.
If you prefer that the logo text scroll more
slowly, you’ll add an additional 100 frames to
the animation.
Add frames to the animation:
1. Click the Time Configuration button.
2. In the Time Configuration dialog, set Length
to 200.
3. On the toolbar, click the Select by Name
button. In the Select Objects dialog, select
Planet Earth and Text01.
The keys appear in the track bar.
4. On the track bar, select the key at frame 100
and slide it to frame 200.
5. Play the animation again. The logo text and the
earth sphere rotate more slowly.
6. Save your work to an incremental file name.
Choose File > Save As. Click the + button.
Adding a Volume Light and Volume Fog 831
Adding a Volume Light and
Volume Fog
You’ll now add a fog effect to the spotlight and
create a light foggy haze around the planet.
Volume Light provides light effects based on the
interaction of lights with atmosphere, such as fog.
Set up:
• Continue from before or open
tut_wwdesigns_globe_add_vol_lite.max.
Create a Camera from View
If you’re continuing from before, you’ll notice that
there is no camera in the scene yet. You can create
one by doing the following:
1. Activate the Perspective Viewport. Adjust it as
you like to frame your shot.
2. On the Views menu, click Create Camera from
View.
The Perspective viewport label changes to
Camera01.
Add another spotlight
Now you’ll create another spotlight shining from
underneath the globe.
1. Activate the Front Viewport, and zoom back so
you have more room.
832 Chapter 8: Special Effects

5. In the Volume Light Parameters rollout, click

2. On the Create panel click the Lights Pick Light.
button. Turn on Target Spot and drag out
6. Click on the Spot02 light in the viewport or
a Spotlight below the planet. Set the target
slightly above the planet object in the Front press the H key and pick the Spot02 object
Viewport. from the list.

3. Adjust the hotspot so it is wider than the planet,

but not a wide as the ring of text.
7. Press F10 to do a test render.
Spot02 appears in the field next to the Remove
Light button.
Tip: As you repeat the process of entering values
and rendering, you will find that the field
cannot be active for the rendering keyboard
shortcut to work.
After you enter a value in a numeric field, click
on the rollout outside the field to remove the
keyboard focus from the field, and then press
F9 to render the same viewport as before (no
matter which viewport is currently active).

You’ll use this spotlight to creating a halo of

light beams behind the planet. You’ll turn on a
few options for the lights to give a good result
for the effect.
On the Modify panel turn on Shadows > On.
4. On the Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout,
increase the Multiplier to 4.0.

Add a volume light:

You can assign the volume light directly in the
modify panel, or you can assign it using Rendering By playing individual values you can adjust the
menu > Environment. effect.
1. Activate the camera viewport. 8. In the Volume group change the Density to 20.

2. Go to the Rendering menu > Environment.

Press F9 to Render Last.

The Environment and Effects dialog appears.

3. In the Atmosphere rollout, click Add.
4. In the Add Atmospheric Effect dialog, select
Volume Light and click OK.
 Adding a Volume Light and Volume Fog 833

Material Map Browser and then choose

Droplets.tga.

Adding a projector map will dramatically add

detail to the volume effect.
Turn on Exponential and press F9
12. Press F10 to render.

9. You can also see the changes you’ve made, in

13. On the Modify panel turn on Decay, setting it
the Exposure Control rollout, by clicking the
to Inverse.
Render Preview button.
In the Near Attenuation group turn on Use and
Show. Set the Start to 11.0 and the End to 32.0
In the Far Attenuation group turn on Use and
Show. Set the Start to 33.0 and the End to 43.0
Note: These are suggested values, yours may
vary.
14. Press F9 to render again.
10. Press H on the keyboard and select Spot02, if
15. For a more dramatic effect you can exclude
it isn’t selected already. On the Modify panel,
the globe from the Spotlight. On the General
open the Advanced Effects rollout.
Parameters rollout, click Exclude. In the
11. In the Projector Map group click the button Include/Exclude dialog, highlight the Planet
marked None. Double-click Bitmap in the object name and use the right-pointing arrow
to move it to the right window, then click OK.
834 Chapter 8: Special Effects
16. On the Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout
adjust the Near and Far Attenuation values so
the effect tapers off within the viewport.
17. If you’d to hide the effect below the globe,
reposition the Spotlight and Spotlight target.
Move it in small increments and repeatedly
render until you have found a location you
like. By tilting the spotlight slightly, rather
than using it straight up, you can get a more
interesting effect.
18. Save your work as mywwdesign07.max
Add volume fog:
You’ll now create an additional fog effect around
the earth. But first, you need to create a type of
helper object called an Atmospheric Apparatus
that will serve as a container for the fog.
1. On the Create panel, click Helpers, and select
Atmospheric Apparatus from the drop-down
list.
2. Click SphereGizmo.
3. In the Top viewport, select the center of
the earth and drag outwards to create the
SphereGizmo. Make it a little bit larger that the
size of the earth.
4. With the SphereGizmo still selected, click
the Modify tab. In the Atmospheres and Effects
rollout, click Add. In the Add Atmosphere
dialog, highlight Volume Fog and click OK.
Now you need to setup the volume fog
parameters.
5. In the Atmospheres and Effects rollout window,
select Volume Fog. Click Setup.
6. In the Volume Fog Parameters rollout, click
Pick Gizmo. Select the SphereGizmo, if it
doesn’t already appear in the dialog.
SphereGizmo01 appears in the field next to the
Remove Gizmo button.
7. In the Volume group, click the white color
swatch. In the Color Selector, dialog, pick a
light bluish purple color. Drag the whiteness
selector to lighten the color. Click OK.
The color you selected is now displayed in the
Color swatch.
8. In the Volume group turn on Exponential and
increase the Density to 100.0.

9. In the Noise group, select Fractal. This gives the
fog a less uniform appearance.
10. In the Noise group change the High Threshold
to 0.1.
Change the Levels to 6.0.
Change the Size to 1.0.
11. Press F9 to render.
12. Make more adjustments to get the look of a
cloud cover.
13. On the toolbar click Select and Link. Link the
SphereGizmo to the globe. Play the animation.
The fog spins with the globe.
14. Save your work as mywwdesigns08.max
Adding a Flare Effect
Using Video Post, you can add events that occur in
a finished video. In this case, you are using Video
Post to add a flare effect that simulates a bright
star behind the earth sphere to give the animation
more of an outer space look.
Adding a Flare Effect 835
Create a dummy object:
You’ll first need to create a dummy object that will
serve as the “placeholder” for the flare effect.
1. Proceed with the file you saved in the last lesson
or open tut_wwdesigns_globe_fog.max from
the \tutorials\worldwide_designs directory.
2. On the Create panel, click Helpers >
Dummy.
3. In the Top viewport, drag out a square above the
earth sphere. Position the dummy so it is visible
behind the globe in the Camera viewport.
4. In the Name and Color rollout, name the
dummy Flare Dummy.
Add a flare effect:
You’ll now use Video Post to easily create an effect
that will add interest to your animation.
1. Choose Rendering menu > Video Post.
The Video Post dialog appears.
2. From the Video Post toolbar, click Add
Scene Event. In the View group, name the Label
Camera01. Click OK.
The animation will be created using the
Camera01 viewport.
836 Chapter 8: Special Effects

8. In the Lens Flare Properties group, click Node

3. Click Add Image Filter Event. . Select
Source.
Lens Effects Flare from the drop-down list.
Click OK. 9. In the Select Flare Objects list, choose Flare
Dummy. Click OK.
For the Label, enter Flare Effect
Now that the dummy object is set as the source,
4. Click Add Image Output Event. Enter you can now make changes to some settings.
wwdesigns with flare effect. Click the 10. To better see each effect, go to the Prefs panel
Files button. For the output file name, and in the Render column, turn off all the
enter wwdesigns0000.tga. In the Targa effects. Now turn each one separately and look
Image Control dialog turn on 24 bit in the in the preview to see the effect by itself.
Bits-per-pixel option.
By naming the file with four zeros at the end of
the name, the program knows that you want
to render an ordered sequence. Setting up
your work this way will let you render a high
resolution still image sequence.
The Video Post now lists all the events you just
created in a queue.

11. To create the appearance of a bright star in the

5. In the Video Post Queue, double-click Flare
Effect. In the Edit Filter Event, click Setup.
You’ll now set some settings in the Lens Effects
Flare dialog that will create a bright star with
rays behind the earth.
6. Click Preview.
A generic preview window displays a flare
effect.
You can change this to display your scene.
7. Click VP Queue to see the earth and the logo
text.
Tip: If the logo text is behind the earth, move the
time slider in 3ds Max to a frame where the logo
text is in front of the earth. Click Update in the
Lens Effects Flare dialog to update the preview.
background, turn on Rays and Star.
You’ll change a few settings to make the distant
star a little more noticeable.
12. Go to the Rays panel. Set these values:
• Size=450
• Angle=45
• Num=300
Click Update to see the changes.
If you cannot see any effects, move the Flare
dummy object in the viewport and then click
Update in the preview window again until the
rays are in the desired location.
13. Go to the Stars panel. Set these values:
• Size=100
 Adding a Flare Effect 837

• Sharp=10 18. On the RAM player toolbar, click Open

Turn on Random. Click Update.
14. Turn on Glow on the Prefs panel.
Channel A. Navigate to the image sequence
you rendered, and select the filename of the 1st
image. At the bottom of the dialog, turn on
Sequence, then Open.

The files load into the RAM Player.

19. When the files are loaded, play the animation
using the Play controls on the RAM player
toolbar.
You’re now ready to render your animation.
Once the files are loaded into the RAM player,
Click OK to exit the dialog.
you can save them out as a movie file. Choose
15. On the Video Post toolbar, click Execute Save Channel A, and then select the file type
Sequence. and file name you want.

16. In the Time Output group, turn on Range.

Summary
Enter 1 in the first field and 200 in the second
field. In the Nth Frame field enter 2. Click In this tutorial, you have created a flying logo. You
Render. have created a globe using primitive objects and
texture maps. You have created and animated text
Video Post now renders every other frames of
to develop the logo treatment, and added gold
your animation and adds the effects you created
metal material and spotlights for dramatic effect.
in a post-production video. Since you’ve
You have added atmospheric and volume light
selected every second frame, the rendering
effects, as well as a lens flare using Video Post.
will go faster and the animation will play more
Finally you have rendered your animation to a still
quickly.
image sequence and assembled it into a movie
Depending on the speed of your computer, using the RAM player.
the rendering may take some time. While you
wait, you can watch the animation progress in
the frame buffer window and in the Video Post
rendering progress dialog.
17. In 3ds Max, go to Render menu > RAM Player.
The RAM player lets you load high resolution
still image sequences into memory and play
them back.
838 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Introduction to reactor
This tutorial will lead you through the process of
creating a physically based animation using the
reactor dynamics functionality built into 3ds Max.
There are many situations in animation where
hand animating and creating keyframes for
objects can be completely replaced; or at the very
least, augmented, by using keyframes created
automatically using physical techniques. For
instance, imagine trying to hand-animate a
thousand balls being poured out of a bucket; you
would need to make sure that no two objects
passed through each other during the simulation,
and that they behaved realistically when colliding
with each other and the environment. With
reactor, however, you can produce the same
animation by just creating a bucket and a thousand
spheres, providing each object with physical
properties such as mass. Once you have set up
the objects’ positions, the rest is calculated for you
automatically.
In this tutorial, you will use the reactor
functionality to create a toy with a low center of
gravity. You will then create copies of the toy, and
use the Preview Window to add them to a toy
box and update the objects’ positions in 3ds Max.
Next, you will hand-animate the box turning
over. The dynamics functionality will solve the
animation for the toys, taking into account the
hand-animated box; the toys will react to the box’s
motion and pour out onto the floor.
Skill Level: Intermediate
Time to Complete: 90 minutes
Features Covered in This Tutorial
In these lessons you will learn:
• Creating rigid body collections.
• Creating simulations with reactor.
• Controlling simulation accuracy.
• Using hand animated objects with reactor.
• Creating fractures with reactor
Tutorial Files
All the files necessary for this tutorial
are provided on the program disc in the
\tutorials\reactor\introduction directory. Before
starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder
from the disc to your local program installation.
Rigid Bodies Make the World Go
Round
The objects in a reactor physical simulation; in
this example, the toys, the toy box, and the floor,
are known as rigid bodies. These are the building
blocks of physical scenes, and can be made up
of one or more geometries. You can use any
geometry to create a rigid body.
In this section, you will create two simple primitive
objects that can be used as rigid bodies, and assign
them some physical properties.
Create a rigid body:
1. Start with a new scene.
2. On the Create panel, click Sphere.

3. In the Perspective viewport, drag to create a
sphere. On the Create panel, set the radius to
25.0.
4. On the Create panel, click Box.
5. Drag in a viewport to create a box beneath the
sphere. On the Create panel, set the Length and
Width values to 200.0 and set Height to 5.0.
Note: Move the box downward to make sure it is
not touching the sphere.
Now you need to give your sphere some
physical properties.
6. Select the sphere, and on the reactor toolbar,
click Open Property Editor .
If the reactor toolbar isn’t visible, right-click
an empty area of the main toolbar, and choose
reactor from the context menu.
You haven’t assigned any physical properties
to the sphere yet, so the dialog displays default
values.
Note: If you don’t have an object selected in
the scene, or if you select an item that cannot
be used as a rigid body (such as a rigid body
collection), the dialog controls are unavailable.
7. Look at the editor’s Physical Properties rollout.
Getting Collective 839
The default value for Mass is 0.0, which means
that the rigid body is fixed in space during
the simulation. However, in this example, the
sphere is going to drop onto the box, which
will act as the floor in your simulation. For
this reason, you need to give the sphere a mass
value.
8. Set the Mass to 50.0.
If you do not specify any physical properties
for an object, it automatically uses the default
rigid-body properties when simulated. You
don’t want the box to move in this example,
so the default properties are sufficient for this
object. It uses the default Mass value of 0.0, and
is therefore fixed in space.
You now have two objects with physical properties.
However, your scene is not yet valid for simulation.
You must add the objects explicitly to the
simulation using a Rigid Body Collection.
Getting Collective
If you have a valid rigid body and want to use it
in a simulation, you need to add it to a rigid body
collection. At the start of the simulation, reactor
examines the scene for all enabled rigid body
collections. It then takes the rigid bodies from the
collections and adds them to the simulation. In
this example, you will create a collection and add
the sphere and box to it in order to add them to
the simulation.
840 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Continue using your scene from the previous
lesson, or open reactor_intro_1.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
Create and add objects to a rigid body collection:
1. Make sure no objects are selected, and then,
on the reactor toolbar, click Create Rigid Body
Collection .
A Rigid Body (RB) Collection is a helper object
that reactor uses to keep track of the rigid
bodies in your scene. It doesn’t show up in
renderings, and its position has no effect on
your scene.
2. Click any viewport to add the collection to your
scene.
Note: The icon’s position has no effect on the
simulation.
3. On the Modify panel, in the RB Collection
Properties rollout, click Pick, and then select
the box in a viewport.
This adds the box to the rigid body collection.
You can also add objects to the collection with
the Add button, as in the following step.
4. Click Add. This opens a standard selection
dialog that contains a list of the remaining
available rigid bodies in the scene.
Tip: To remove a rigid body from the collection,
highlight it in the Rigid Bodies list and then
click Delete.
5. From the list, choose the sphere, and then click
Select to close the dialog and add the sphere
to the collection.
Tip: A useful shortcut for creating an RB
Collection is to select the objects before you
create the collection. If you select several
objects and click Create Rigid Body Collection,
an RB Collection is created which already
contains the selected objects.
The Basics of Simulation
Now that you have a valid scene for simulation,
you can try simulating it. reactor provides two
methods for simulating animation:
• The reactor preview window displays your
simulation using OpenGL or DirectX. You can
examine your objects’ physical behavior in the
window, see how they interact, and even use
the mouse to interact with the scene. You can
use this window to update the rigid bodies’
states in 3ds Max at any time during simulation,
which means that it acts as an interactive scene
modeler.
• Alternatively, use keyframe creation. You define
an animation range, and reactor creates and
simulates the physical world across that range,
passing the rigid bodies’ states back to 3ds Max
as keyframes.
Continue using your scene from the previous
lesson, or open reactor_intro_2.max from
tutorials\reactor\introduction.
Examine your scene in the preview window:
1. Go to the Utilities panel, click the reactor
button, and, on the About rollout, make sure
Choose Solver is set to Havok 1.
2. On the reactor toolbar, click Preview
Animation.
This opens your scene in a preview window. By
default, your scene is initially displayed from
the Perspective view. You can use the left mouse
button to rotate the camera, the middle button
to pan, and the scroll wheel to zoom.
3. To start your simulation, open the Simulation
menu in the preview window and choose
Play/Pause, or press P on your keyboard. Your
simulation start and the sphere will fall onto
the box.

You can use your right mouse button to drag
the sphere around the scene. However, you
cannot move the box, because it has no mass.
Tip: To reset the simulation, press R .
4. When you’re finished exploring your
simulation, return to 3ds Max by closing the
preview window.
Create physically-based keyframes:
Next, you will create keyframes for the objects’
interaction. A sphere falling onto a level surface
isn’t very interesting, so first you will tilt the box so
the sphere will roll along its surface.
1. In the Left viewport, select the box and
rotate it clockwise about 30 degrees, being
careful not to let it touch the sphere.
2. On the reactor toolbar, click Create
Animation. A Reactor dialog appears, asking
you to confirm the choice. Click OK to
continue.
This creates a simulation and runs it for the
length of time between the Start Frame and End
Frame values set on the track bar. The default
values for these are 0 and 100, respectively; you
will change these values later in the tutorial.
Geometry Types 841
reactor creates keyframes for the positions and
orientations of your rigid bodies for each of
those 100 frames.
3. Click Play Animation to watch the
animation in the viewport. You should see your
sphere falling onto the box and rolling down
over the edge of it.
4. At frame 0, select the sphere if necessary, and
then Alt +click the sphere and, from the
quad menu > Set quad, choose Delete Selected
Animation.
The sphere’s keys on the track bar go away.
Geometry Types
Simulation Geometry is the second rollout in the
Rigid Body Properties dialog; it deals with how
objects are represented in the physical simulation.
In reactor, a convex object is one that has no
holes or concavities in its surface. For instance, a
ping-pong ball is convex, but a golf ball is concave.
Convex objects are much easier to simulate
than concave objects. For this reason, when you
simulate an object, it is treated as if it was convex
by default, even if the 3ds Max object is concave.
To do this, reactor uses a special algorithm to
create a convex version of the object for simulation;
however, the object does not change in 3ds Max.
This is called creating a convex hull for the object’s
mesh, and is represented by the Mesh Convex Hull
option on the Simulation Geometry rollout of the
Rigid Body Properties dialog.
However, there are times where you will want to
simulate the exact mesh of an object, concavities
and all. You specify this using the Concave Mesh
option.
In this section of the tutorial, you will specify
that you want to simulate your sphere as an exact
sphere. This means that the sphere’s geometry is
not simulated; instead, a mathematical sphere is
842 Chapter 8: Special Effects
used for simulation. This is not only faster, but
also more accurate (the object will roll perfectly
smoothly) and less memory-intensive than a
simulation based on a geometry-based sphere.
Continue using your scene from the previous
lesson, or open reactor_intro_3.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
Change the simulation geometry for the sphere:
1. Select the sphere.
2. Open the Rigid Body Properties dialog
3. In the Simulation Geometry rollout, choose
Bounding Sphere.
4. Click Create Animation to regenerate
the keyframes for the simulation.
The sphere rolls more smoothly, though this
might not be immediately apparent if your
sphere is highly tessellated.
5. At frame 0, select the sphere if necessary, and
then Alt +click the sphere and, from the
quad menu > Set quad, choose Delete Selected
Animation.
The sphere’s keys on the track bar go away.
Geometry Simulation
In this lesson, you’ll continue making a toy. The
existing sphere acts as the toy’s body. The next
step is to create a cylinder to act as the toy’s arms.
You’ll also create a duplicate of this cylinder and
reduce its tessellation. You’ll use this simplified
version, which is easier and faster to simulate,
as the simulation geometry for the first, more
complex cylinder. This technique is known as
using proxy geometry.
Note: If you were to make 20 copies of the first
.
cylinder and add them to your simulation, they
would all use the simplified, duplicate cylinder as
their simulation geometry. This means you’d need
only one instance of the cylinder geometry for the
physical simulation, thus reducing memory usage
and increasing simulation speed.
Note: Continue using your scene from the previous
lesson, or open reactor_intro_4.max from
\tutorials\reactor.
Create a simplified version of an object for
simulation:
1. Create a cylinder in the Left viewport, and
position it above your sphere.
Make sure that the cylinder and sphere don’t
touch each other.
2. On the Modify panel, set the following values
for the cylinder: Radius=6.0, Height=70.0, and
make sure Sides is set to 18 (the default).
 Building Up a Rigid Body 843

right-clicking and choosing Hide Selection

from the Display quadrant of the quad menu.
9. Select the RBCollection helper object in your
scene, and add the original cylinder to it.

10. On the reactor toolbar, click Preview

Animation and then play the animation.
The cylinder doesn’t roll as smoothly as its
display would suggest.
11. In the preview window, choose Display >
Sim Edges to display edges for the objects’
simulation geometries.
3. With the cylinder still selected, choose Edit >
The cylinder’s simulation geometry is coarser
Clone. On the Clone Options dialog, choose than its display body.
Copy and click OK.
You’ll use this copy of the cylinder as the proxy
geometry.
4. On the Modify panel, reduce the number of
sides of the new cylinder to 12 and then move
it away from the other objects.
5. Select the original cylinder and open the Rigid

Body Properties dialog .

6. Set the cylinder’s Mass value to 10.0.
7. Set the cylinder’s Simulation Geometry
property to Proxy Convex Hull.
This means that the cylinder will use the convex
hull created from another object’s geometry as
its physical representation. Building Up a Rigid Body
The Proxy button at the bottom of the rollout
A rigid body can comprise more than one object,
becomes available.
or primitive. A rigid body with more than one
8. On the Simulation Geometry rollout, click primitive is known as a compound rigid body.
the Proxy button, and then select the cloned
cylinder in one of the viewports. As stated previously, concave objects (objects with
holes or dips in the surface or geometry) are more
The button now displays the name of your difficult to simulate than convex objects. For this
chosen proxy object. reason, a compound rigid body made up of several
Tip: You can now hide your proxy cylinder convex objects can be simulated much faster than
to keep it out of the way by selecting it, a single concave object. A good example of this is a
844 Chapter 8: Special Effects
picture frame, where simulating a concave picture
frame would be slow, but simulating a group of
four convex boxes representing the frame sides
would not.
In this lesson, you will combine the two non-fixed
rigid bodies in your scene (the sphere and
cylinder) to create a single rigid body. In doing
so, you will see the differences between primitive
properties and rigid body properties. Each
primitive in a rigid body can have a separate mass
and simulation geometry, while friction, elasticity,
and display body properties are applied to the
entire rigid body.
To create your compound rigid body, you will
need to select the objects and group them using
the group functionality in 3ds Max. This group
can be added to the rigid body collection as a new
rigid body.
Continue using the scene from the previous
lesson, or open reactor_intro_5.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
Create a compound rigid body:
1. Select the cylinder and move it down into the
sphere, so that it resembles a pair of arms.
Relocated cylinder as seen in the Front viewport
2. Hold down Ctrl and select the sphere, adding
it to your selection set.
The cylinder and sphere should be the only
selected objects.
3. Choose Group menu > Group.
Use the Group dialog to name the new group
toy_body. Click OK to continue.
4. Select the RB Collection helper object, and add
your new group to the collection.
5. Click Preview Animation to watch the
simulation.
You should get an error saying that the sphere
and cylinder can no longer be rigid bodies.
This is because they are being used as part of an
active compound rigid body, so you will need
to remove them as single objects from the rigid
body collection.
6. On the RB Collection Properties rollout of the
Modify panel, hold down Ctrl and select the
sphere and the cylinder, and then click Delete.
7. Click Preview Animation and watch the
simulation.
Now you can see that the sphere and cylinder
act as parts of the same object.

Making It Wobbly
The toy you are going to make will have a
non-uniform mass distribution, which, in this
case, means that most of its mass will be centered
about its base. This will have the effect that the toy
will not roll or fall over, but will try to right itself,
and will wobble around. This behavior is possible
because the primitives in a compound rigid body
can have different masses. All you have to do is
add a small, heavy object inside the bottom of the
toy and most of its mass will reside there.
Continue using the scene from the previous
lesson, or open reactor_intro_6.max from
\tutorials\reactor.
Complete the toy:
1. First, complete the toy’s geometry. Create a
torus for its waistband, a sphere for the head,
two small spheres for eyes, and one for the nose.
Making It Wobbly 845
Front view of completed toy geometry
2. Select the three spheres used for the eyes and
nose and open the Rigid Body Properties dialog
.
3. Set the simulation geometry to Bounding Box.
Since these spheres won’t play a large part in the
simulation, you can treat them as very simple
geometry to speed up the simulation.
4. Select the head of the toy and set its simulation
geometry to Bounding Sphere.
You can keep the torus’s simulation geometry
as Mesh Convex Hull, or you could create a
copy and simplify it as a proxy, as you did with
the cylinder.
5. Once you have finished creating and arranging
these objects, add them to the toy_body group.
For each object, select the object, choose Group
menu > Attach, and then click toy_body.
Change the mass distribution for a rigid body:
1. Select the toy_body group and choose Group
menu > Open.
846 Chapter 8: Special Effects

This allows you to select the individual

primitives within the group to edit their rigid
body properties.
2. Change the mass of each object in the group
(except the body and arms, which already have
mass values) to 1.0.
Tip: You can do this quickly by selecting all of
the objects in the group, and setting the Mass to
1.0 on the Rigid Body Properties dialog.
You do this because you are going to add a heavy
object to the group, and it is this mass that you
really want to affect the object’s motion.

3. Click Preview Animation and you will

see that all of the new objects have been added
to the compound rigid body.
The toy should fall, though it won’t yet have
the correct behavior. If the object doesn’t fall,
you might not have given a mass to all of the 5. On the Rigid Body Properties dialog,
objects in the rigid body and, as a result, one give the box a mass of 300.0.
of the primitives is fixed. To fix this, close the
preview window and check the mass of each of 6. Select a component of the group and choose
the objects in the group. Group menu > Close to close the group.

4. Add a small box (Height, Width, and 7. Select the small box, choose Group menu >
Length=3.0) inside the body sphere and near Attach, and then click toy_body to add the box
the bottom of the object. to the group.

8. Click Preview Animation and examine

the behavior of the toy.

The toy slides down the box and tips over as
before, but it tilts backward as though to right
itself. The high mass in the box at the base of
the toy has lowered the group’s center of gravity.
Save your file as my_reactor_intro.max, and
experiment with flattening out the plane and
scaling it up.
Looking at Things Differently
reactor allows you to use display proxies for
objects; this means that a rigid body can
have a different display body for use in the
preview window. This improves the window’s
performance, especially when you are simulating
more than one object with the same display body.
If you have a lot of objects that all look the same,
then your display only needs to keep track of one
instance of the display body when display proxies
are used. As a bonus, you increase simulation
setup speed, because you create only one instance
of the display body.
In this lesson you’ll create a display proxy for the
toy. This is so that when you create copies of the
Looking at Things Differently 847
toy later in the tutorial, your setup and display
speed won’t be adversely affected.
Continue using the scene from the previous
lesson, or open reactor_intro_7.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
Create a display proxy for a rigid body:
1. Create a copy of the toy by Shift +dragging the
group in the viewport.
Move the copy away from the other objects.
2. A display proxy must be a single mesh. To
create this, first ungroup the toy copy by
selecting the new group and choosing Group
menu > Ungroup. Then select the copy’s main
body sphere.
3. Right-click the sphere. In the Transform
quadrant of the quad menu, choose Convert To
> Convert To Editable Mesh.
4. In the Edit Geometry rollout of the Modify
panel, click Attach List.
5. Use the Attach List dialog to select the rest of
the objects that were part of the group, and then
click Attach.
You now have a single mesh representing the
toy that you can use as a display proxy.
Tip: It is a good idea to label models in your
scene clearly, especially when they look
similar to one another. In this tutorial, for
example, you could rename your proxy object
toy_body_proxy.
6. Select your original toy_body group and
choose Group menu > Open.
7. Select the group parent, which is the pink box
surrounding the grouped objects.
You need to select the group parent rather than
any of the toy’s constituent objects, because
the group parent represents the rigid body and
display proxies are applied to rigid bodies, not
primitives.
848 Chapter 8: Special Effects
8. Open the Rigid Body Properties dialog,
and on the Display rollout, turn on Proxy.
This activates the display proxy pick button.
9. Click the display proxy pick button and select
the single-mesh version of your toy in one of
the viewports.
The button displays the name of your proxy object, in
this case toy_body_proxy.
You have now assigned an alternative display
body to your compound rigid body.
10. Hide the proxy object: Select the single-mesh
toy, right-click, and from the Display quadrant
of the quad menu choose Hide Selection.
This will keep it out of your way.
11. Select a component of the group, and
choose Group menu > Close, then click Preview
Animation.
Your toy will use the new mesh as its display
object. If you make changes to the editable
mesh, these will be displayed whenever you use
the preview window.
Simulation Accuracy
If strange artifacts show up in the objects’ motions,
you probably need to increase the accuracy of your
physical simulation. This can be done in one of
two ways. You can change the accuracy externally,
which affects the accuracy for both keyframe
creation and the preview window, or you can
alter it from within the preview window. In both
cases, changing the accuracy requires altering a
simulation parameter called Substeps/Keyframe.
You can edit this in the reactor rollouts on the
Utilities panel or by using the Physics menu in the
preview window.
When the physics are being calculated, reactor
moves the objects forward in small steps. The
smaller the steps, the more accurate the simulation.
However, you should note that the simulation will
also become slower as it becomes more accurate.
The default accuracy value is 10 substeps per
keyframe, which means that reactor divides each
keyframe interval into 10, and steps the simulation
forward in intervals of this size. If you increase the
substeps per keyframe value to 25, then the size
of reactor ’s steps becomes one keyframe interval
divided by 25.
 Setting Up the Simulation 849

Note: You can continue using your file or
you can open reactor_intro_8.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
Change the accuracy of your simulation:
Create the toy box:
1. In your scene (away from the other objects),
create five boxes with Length and Width=400.0,
and Height=25.0.
2. Arrange the boxes to form a larger, hollow box.

1. On the Utilities panel, click the reactor

button and expand the Preview & Animation
rollout.
2. Change the Substeps/Key value from 10 to 25.

3. Click Preview Animation.

The simulation may run more slowly but will be
less likely to be affected by sudden slowdowns.
3. In the Left viewport, rotate the sloping box
20 degrees counterclockwise to flatten it out
Setting Up the Simulation somewhat. With the sloping box selected,
increase both its Length and Width parameters
In this section you will create a toy box and 39
to 600, and move it downward 240 units.
copies of your toy. Using the preview window,
you will drop the toy copies into your box, let
them settle, and then pass their positions back to
3ds Max. As you will see, the preview window acts
as an interactive modeling tool, allowing you to
rearrange objects physically and then use changes
made in the preview window to update 3ds Max.
Note: You can continue using your file or
you can open reactor_intro_9.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
850 Chapter 8: Special Effects

4. Select and right-click the box used as the base of

3. In a side viewport, Shift +Move the toy, and
the toy box, and in the Transform quadrant of
position the first copy above the original.
the quad menu, choose Convert To > Convert
To Editable Mesh. Note: Make sure that the copy is not touching
the original toy.
5. In the Edit Geometry rollout of the Modify
panel, click Attach List.
6. In the Attach List dialog, select the other four
boxes, which make up the sides of the toy box,
and click Attach.
You now have a single mesh representing the
toy box.

7. Open the Rigid Body Properties dialog

and set the Simulation Geometry property to
Concave Mesh.

Update your scene from the preview window:

1. On the toolbar, click Select and Move.

2. Move the toy inside the box. 4. In the Clone Options dialog, set Number Of
Note: Make sure that the toy is not touching the Copies=39 and click OK.
box.

5. Select the RB Collection helper object and in
the Modify panel > RB Collection Properties
rollout, click Add.
6. Select all of the new toy objects and the toy box
and click Select to add them to the rigid body
collection.
7. Click Preview Animation and let the toys
fall into the box and settle.
Using Hand-Animated Rigid Bodies 851
8. When the toys have settled in the box, from the
Preview Window menu bar choose MAX menu
> Update MAX.
9. Close the preview window and click in one of
the viewports to update the display. The toys
will have been updated so that they have the
positions and rotations you updated in the
preview window.
Using Hand-Animated Rigid
Bodies
Something that you will often want to do is to
use hand-animated rigid bodies in a physical
simulation. These rigid bodies are referred to as
unyielding rigid bodies and have the Unyielding
property turned on in the Rigid Body Properties
dialog. They behave as their keyframes dictate
and other rigid bodies react to them. You do not
need to give them a mass. In this example, you will
hand-animate your toy box so that it tips over and
spills the toys out onto the floor.
Note: You can continue using your file or
you can open reactor_intro_10.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
852 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Add hand-animated rigid bodies to a physical
simulation:
1. Select the toy box.
2. Open the Rigid Body Properties dialog.
On the Physical Properties rollout, turn on
Unyielding.
3. Turn on Auto Key and move the time
slider to frame 60. Rotate the box clockwise
by about 125 degrees so that the objects will
pour out when physically active. Turn off Auto
Key. Be careful to move your floor below the
final position of the toy box so that the two are
not interpenetrating. This would not generate
errors in simulation, but would look strange.
Note: Your toys may exhibit some strange
behavior when you are hand-animating the
box, but don’t be alarmed. This is because the
objects have not been keyframed yet. They
will, however, behave correctly in the preview
window.
4. Click Preview Animation.
Your box tips over and the toys pour out onto
the floor. You may want to increase the size of
your floor so that the toys don’t all wobble over
the edge.
5. At this stage, you may want to tweak the physical
properties of your objects. For instance, if your
objects are piling up as they fall out of the box,
you can reduce their friction and the friction
of the floor, so that they spread further after
colliding with the floor and the other toys.
Note: Remember that to change the physical
properties, you must open the group and
change the properties of the group helper
object. You can change the properties of more
than one object at a time.
Preparing Output
Now that you have your simulation behaving
correctly, you need to create keyframes for the
objects’ motions. This can be done as before using
the Create Animation button on the Toolbox.
In this example, you will create keyframes for
the first 100 frames of the motion, and then
simulate from frame 100 on. This shows how the
reactor dynamics functionality can extract initial
velocities from the scene so that simulating from
frame 0 to 100 in one step is the same as simulating
from frames 0 to 20, then from 20 to 40, 40 to 60,
60 to 80, and finally 80 to 100.
Note: You can continue using your file or
you can open reactor_intro_11.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.

Extract initial velocities for rigid bodies:
1. On the reactor toolbar, click Create
Animation.
Keyframes are created between frame 0 and 100
for your rigid bodies’ motions.
2. On the Utilities panel click reactor, then on
the Preview & Animation rollout, set Start
Frame=100 and End Frame=500.
3. Click Preview Animation.
You will see that the objects start simulation
with initial linear and angular velocities.
4. In the Time Controls, click Time
Configuration.
5. In the Time Configuration dialog, set End Time
to 500.
6. Click Create Animation again.
Keyframes will be created from frame 100 to
500. If you examine the keyframes behavior
in the viewport, you will see that the objects’
motion is smooth as it passes over frame
100, since the objects’ initial velocities were
extracted and used for simulation.
Reducing File Size
You now have keyframes for your objects’ motion
that can be used for creating animations or still
renderings. However, each object currently has a
keyframe for every frame. This means that your
file size is quite large; it will also be quite difficult
to tweak an object’s behavior after the simulation.
reactor provides access to a reduction process that
attempts to remove redundant keyframes for the
rigid bodies. You can provide a threshold value for
the algorithm that guarantees that the motion of
the objects after this reduction will be within that
Reducing File Size 853
factor of their original value. In this section, you
will reduce the keyframes for your rigid bodies.
Note: You can continue using your file or
you can open reactor_intro_12.max from
\tutorials\reactor\introduction.
Remove redundant keyframes after simulation:
1. On the Utilities panel > click reactor and
expand the Preview and Animation rollout.
2. In the Preview and Animation rollout, set Start
Frame to 0 and End Frame to 100.
3. On the Utilities panel, expand the Utils rollout.
In the Key Management group, click Reduce
Now.
This reduces the keyframes for all active rigid
bodies in the simulation. For this example, use
the default threshold value of 0.5.
4. Look at the animation again. As you can see,
the behavior of the rigid bodies in your scene is
almost exactly the same as before the reduction
process, but the number of keyframes for each
toy is greatly reduced. The motion of the toys
is still quite complex, but the file size has been
reduced about 30%.
5. Save your scene as my_reactor_intro_final.max.
If you like, you can compare your results with
the saved file reactor_intro_final.max. About
midway through your animation, your scene
should look something like the following
illustration.
854 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Summary
In this tutorial, you have learned the basics of
using reactor to create complex animations:
1. Using the Rigid Body Properties dialog to set
properties for objects in your animation.
2. Using an RB Collection object to control the
animation.
3. Previewing the animation, and converting the
animation into 3ds Max keyframes.
Rag Doll Tutorial
Rag Doll Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will add constraints to a
predesigned character model to create a fully
simulated rag doll using reactor. The tutorial uses
two different constraint types to achieve realistic
rag doll motion: Hinge and Ragdoll constraints.
Each type is presented individually, with the
workflow and typical use case for each constraint.
The scene is a simplified room, containing a set
of stairs for your rag doll to fall down, and a floor
on which it’ll come to rest. The focus of this
tutorial is rag doll character creation, so we’ve
provided the completed scene with one catch: The
character lacks any physical properties, and, most
importantly, it has no constraints! Without these
features the character has no physical presence in
the scene, and will not react with the other objects.
As you proceed through this tutorial you will learn
what constraints are, how to use them and how
to tweak their parameters to adjust the rag doll’s
reactions. After this it is up to you to decide how to
best use all those rag dolls, whether it be for falling
down staircases, tumbling over banisters or simply
being caught in explosions. It’s up to you!
Skill Level: Intermediate
Time to complete: 2–3 hours
Features Covered in this Tutorial
In these lessons you will learn:
• Setting physical properties for the bones.
• Viewing gravity and other simulation
parameters.
• Creating a Rigid Body Collection.
• Previewing the animation.
• Using constraints to hold the character together.
• Using Hinge constraints for knees, elbows and
wrists.
• Disabling collisions.
 Setting Up the Rag-Doll Scene 855

• Using Ragdoll constraints for hips and
shoulders, back and neck.
Tutorial Files
All the files necessary for this tutorial
are provided on the program disc in the
\tutorials\reactor\ragdoll directory. Before
starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder
from the disc to your local program installation.
Setting Up the Rag-Doll Scene
In this lesson, you set up the scene by opening a
3ds Max file.
Open the sample file:
• Choose File menu > Open and open
character.max from \tutorials\reactor\ragdoll.
You are presented with a simple scene
containing some stairs, a floor and a character
model.
create a simulation that mirrors your everyday
experiences, or if you’d prefer, an alien world
with gravity pointing to the right!
Making Objects Physical
The character model you are working with may be
thought of as 18 individual pieces: 17 which are
bones and an eighteenth, which is the skin that
envelopes them. As far as reactor is concerned,
the skin plays no part in the physical simulation
of the scene; it is simply an aesthetic feature in
that it presents a more realistic human look than
the underlying bones. Only the bones themselves
are simulated and they feedback new coordinate
information to the skin so that it may properly
deform to keep the bones wrapped up.
With this in mind the first thing you must do is
give each of the bones a value for its mass.
Set physical properties for the bones:

1. On the toolbar, click Select By Name, or

alternatively, press H .
You will now be presented with a complete list
of all the objects in the scene.
2. In the Select Objects dialog, turn on Display
Subtree.

At the moment none of the objects in this scene

have any physical properties associated with
them; this is what you’ll be adding over the
course of the tutorial. reactor essentially adds
physicality to scenes. To properly simulate
dynamics, objects must have real-world
properties such as mass and friction assigned.
By adding these things to your scene, you can
856 Chapter 8: Special Effects
As you can see, all of the bones are named so
that their position in the body is apparent;
LCalf, RFoot, Head, etc.
3. Select all the bones and click Select.
4. On the Utilities panel, click reactor and
open the Properties rollout.
6. Select the steps and the floor in the scene.
7.
View gravity and other simulation parameters:
1.
5. Assign a value of 10.0 kilograms to the
selection, meaning that, in total, the character
weighs 170 kg. Although doing this yields a
nice final result, if you’d like to add greater
realism to the simulation you should try to give
the different components a comparable value
to their real life equivalents, keeping the ratio
of masses relative. For example, your forearm
should not have the same mass as your thigh!
For this tutorial, accept the default values of 0.3
for Friction and Elasticity. However, feel free to
tweak their values and see the results. Elasticity
controls how bouncy the object appears to be; a
greater value leads to a bouncier feel. Friction
controls how easy it is to slide the object across
a given surface in the scene; larger values lead
to increased resistance.
Next, you will give the background objects (the
steps of the staircase and the floor) a physical
presence in the scene.
On the Utilities panel > Properties
rollout, set Mass to 0.0.
This seems like a strange mass for these
objects. However, reactor treats all objects
with a mass of zero as fixed in place; under
no circumstances are they allowed to move.
Since you don’t want the steps or the floor to
suddenly drop into the void under the influence
of gravity, you give them a mass of zero to tell
reactor that they are immovable.
As you may have noticed, the default mass
assigned by reactor to an object is zero (fixed),
so this last step can be ignored, in general.
On the Utilities panel, click reactor and
open the Havok 1 World rollout
 Making Objects Physical 857

The three values in the World rollout > Gravity

area control the gravity in your world (scene).
The X, Y and Z components together form the
direction vector that represents gravity. Since
gravity usually points downward, only the Z
component has a non-zero value, by default.
But where does the rather strange looking
value of -386.22 come from? The minus sign
simply indicates that the gravity should be Notice that the values in the Havok 1 World
applied downwards, and the value is arrived at rollout are updated accordingly:
as follows: In the real word, gravity accelerates
objects towards the earth at around 9.8 m/s
every second. If you look down at the next
value in the World rollout, you’ll see that 1m
is equal to 39.37 3ds Max units (inches), so
if you roughly convert gravity from meters to
3ds Max units, you get the 386.22 3ds Max units
you see above.
2. Choose Customize menu > Units Setup and
switch the Display Unit Scale to Metric.

If you give values to the X and Y components

of Gravity, you can create bizarre scenes where
characters fly towards the walls or even the
ceiling! In this lesson, you will be simulating a
’normal’ environment, so there is no need to
change it.
858 Chapter 8: Special Effects

The final step before you can simulate your scene

is to add your objects to a rigid body collection.

Add the objects to a rigid body collection:

1. In the Create panel, click Helpers and

select reactor from the dropdown list.
The Object Type rollout should now contain
reactor object types.

At the moment, there are no objects in the

collection.

3. On the Modify panel > RB Collection

Properties rollout, click Add.
4. In the Select Rigid Bodies dialog, select all of
the scene objects except skin and click Select.
The RB Collection Properties list should now
look something like this:

2. On the Create panel > Object Type rollout, click

RBCollection, then click in one of the viewports
to create a rigid body collection helper object.
The position of the helper object is of no
significance to the scene. You should see
something similar to the following image in the
viewport:
 Attaching Limbs Together 859

You’re now ready to simulate the rag doll

scene. Before you do, save your work as
my_character01.max.

Preview the animation:

1. Continue from your previous section,
or open character01.max from the
\tutorials\reactor\ragdoll directory.

2. On the Utilities panel, click reactor and

expand the Preview & Animation rollout, then
click Preview in Window.
3. Press P to start the simulation.
The bones are not yet connected, and thus,
fall apart when they hit the stairs. In the next
lesson, you will attach the limbs.

Attaching Limbs Together

In the previous lesson, the character literally fell to
pieces once he hit the stairs. In the current scene,
each bone is essentially an independent object and
is in no way linked with the other bones in the
body. There is nothing to stop the individual bones
from going their own way. In this lesson, you will
use Constraints to hold the character together.
Constraints are used to connect one object to
another. All constraints are represented in 3ds Max
by helper objects.

View all available reactor helpers:

• On the Create panel, click Helpers, and

select reactor from the drop-down list.

You are informed that several of the bodies

are interpenetrating, however you may
safely ignore this for the moment by clicking
Continue. The reactor preview window pops
up and you are be presented with the following
scene:
860 Chapter 8: Special Effects

This means that although it can rotate around the

hinge axis, it can do so only until it bumps in the
wall of the car. In reality, it cannot swing a full
360 degrees: The constraint’s range of motion is
limited (to 120 degrees, for example).
Furthermore, the hinges that connect the door
to the frame can take only a measured amount
of stress before giving way (think of hitting the
door with a rather large sledge hammer). Since
you can break the constraint, you would call this
a breakable hinge constraint, or more precisely a
breakable limited hinge constraint. The good news
is that reactor can simulate all of these features,
giving you free rein over the movement and the
stresses and strains that the constraints in you
scene can undergo.

Add a hinge constraint

Among the reactor objects you’ll see some of

1. On the Create panel, click Helpers, and
the available constraint types; from Hinge
choose reactor from the dropdown list.
constraints to Prismatic constraints, there are
constraint types to reproduce pretty much any 2. On the Create panel > Object Type rollout,
behavior you would like to see in your scene. click Hinge.
In the next lesson, you will concentrate on the The Properties rollout displays.
Hinge and Rag Doll constraints, as these are
the two you will be using to piece together the
character.

Using Hinge Constraints

The first constraint you’ll be using is known as a
hinge constraint which, as you might guess from
the name, behaves like a hinge. A simple, everyday
example of this kind of constraint is a door. A door
can only swing around the points at which it is
attached to the frame; you can think of this as the
axis around which the door rotates. It can’t rotate
around the other two axes, because the connection
points to the frame prevent it from doing so.
In fact, the door is actually a special type of hinge
constraint in that it is a limited hinge constraint.
 Setting Up Knees, Elbows, Ankles and Wrists 861

forearm. The Limited group parameters let you

control the extents of the hinge’s motion.

Setting Up Knees, Elbows, Ankles

and Wrists
Open the sample file:
• You can continue from where you left
off, or choose File menu > Open and
load the character01.max from the
\tutorials\reactor\ragdoll directory.
Using a constraint is similar to the Rigid Body
Collection, but this time you add a Constraint
Solver to the scene. Next you can begin to add
various constraint types to your objects and then
add them to this solver. The solver, in essence,
figures out how best to keep all of your objects
happy under the conditions they’ve been given
(body A connected to body B, body B connected
to body C, etc.).

Add a Constraint Solver to the scene:

1. On the Create panel, click Helpers and

choose reactor from the drop-down list.
2. On the Create panel > Object Type rollout,
click CSolver.
3. Click in one of the viewports to create a
Constraint Solver.
Note: The location of the helper object is not
important.

As you can see, Hinge has quite a few

parameters, but the only ones that you will be
concerned with for this tutorial are the Parent,
Child, and Limited settings. You use the Parent
and Child controls to specify the objects in
your scene that serve as the two components of
the constraint; for example: the upper arm and
862 Chapter 8: Special Effects
Note: The Constraint Solver works only if all the
constraints act upon rigid bodies that belong to
the same Rigid Body Collection.
Next, you’ll specify the collection to which to
apply the Constraint Solver.
4. With the solver selected, open the Modify
panel > Properties rollout, and click the button
labeled None, below RB Collection.
5. Press H and choose RBCollection01
from the Pick Object dialog.
Now you’re ready to start connecting bones
together, and soon will have your rag doll tumbling
down the stairs. You’ll use the Hinge constraint to
connect the various bones in the character, first
joining the right foot and calf bones to simulate
an ankle.
Create Hinge constraints for the ankles:
1. On the Create panel > Object Type rollout,
click Hinge.
2. Click anywhere in a viewport to create a Hinge
constraint.
Next you’ll choose the objects to which to
assign to this constraint.
3. In the Modify panel > Properties rollout, click
the button labeled None, next to Child.
4. Press H and choose RFoot in the Pick
Object dialog, then click Pick
The Child button should now read RFoot.
5. On the Modify panel > Properties rollout, turn
on the Parent check box.
This indicates that you want to constrain two
objects together, rather than one object to the
world.
6. Click the button labeled None, next to Parent.
7. Press H , choose RCalf from the Pick
Objects dialog, and then click Pick
The button beside Parent should now read
RCalf and the scene should look like this:
 Setting Up Knees, Elbows, Ankles and Wrists 863

Create Hinge constraints for the knees, elbows and

In its current state, the character’s foot is free to
rotate 360 degrees around the hinge constraint,
which as you can imagine would be pretty
painful! You need to use the Limited property
for this hinge constraint.
8. On the Properties rollout, turn on Limited.
wrists:
• The process for setting up the hinge constraint
for each of the other bone pairs is identical,
with only the constraint limits differing. With
this in mind use this list to set the constraint
parameters for each joint:

9. In the Limited group, set Min Angle to -20.0

When you’re done, the scene should look like
and Max Angle to 30.0 this:

10. Repeat this process for the left foot and calf
bones.

Constraint Name Child Parent Min Angle Max Angle

RAnkleJoint RFoot RCalf -20.0 30.0

LAnkleJoint LFoot LCalf -20.0 30.0

RKneeJoint RCalf RThigh -85.0 0.0

LKneeJoint LCalf LThigh -85.0 0.0

RWristJoint RHand RForeArm -35.0 35.0

LWristJoint LHand LForeArm -35.0 35.0

RElbowJoint RForeArm RUpperArm -85.0 0.0

LElbowJoint LForeArm LUpperArm -85.0 0.0

864 Chapter 8: Special Effects

You’ll simulate the other bones using Rag Doll

Constraints, as their motion is more sophisticated.
The last thing you have to do is to add all of the
constraints to the Constraint Solver.

Add the Hinge constraints to the Constraint Solver:

1. Press H , and on the Object Select

dialog, choose CSolver01 and click Select.

2. On the Modify panel > Properties rollout,

click Add. Next you’ll preview the scene again to see just how
3. On the dialog, highlight all of the hinges and these alterations have affected the character.
click Select
The CSolver Properties rollout should now • On the Utility panel, click reactor, and
look like this: then on the Preview & Animation rollout, click
the Preview in Window.
You might have noticed during the last preview that
reactor complained that some of the rigid bodies
in the scene were interpenetrating. Although you
ignored this warning on that occasion, it’s not a
good idea to do in general. Later in this tutorial,
you will take care of this issue, but for now click
Continue and view the preview.
The first thing that stands out is that the bones
connected with hinge constraints stay together.
This is exactly as planned, but notice that they
continue bouncing and dancing about once they

hit the floor. This is because reactor notices that
the bones are interpenetrating with one another
and tries to separate them. However, at the same
time, the Constraint Solver is trying to keep them
together. Since they are essentially battling with
one another over the position of the various bones
they continue to bounce about erratically. The
solution to this is to tell reactor not to worry about
interpenetrations between the bones that you’ve
connected.
Disable collisions between the limbs:
1. On the Utility panel > reactor >
Collisions rollout > Global Collisions group,
click Define Collision Pairs.
2. Select all of (and only) the bone objects in the
3. Click the >> button
You are presented with the following dialog:
4. Click OK to accept the changes.
Setting Up Knees, Elbows, Ankles and Wrists 865
There are three columns: one for all the
entities (objects) in the scene, one for enabled
collisions, and one for disabled collisions. By
default, all collisions are enabled between all
objects so you need to tell reactor to ignore the
collisions between the bones in your character.
You want to ignore only bone-to-bone
collisions, though. If, for example, you chose
to ignore the collision between the character’s
foot bone and the floor object, the character’s
foot would pass straight through the floor
unimpeded.
first column.
This displays a list of enabled collisions in the
second column.
All of the collision pairs between the selected
bodies move to the third column (disabled
collision pairs).
Note: Instead of disabling all collisions between
all limbs, you could instead disable collisions
between adjoining limbs. In order to do so, you
866 Chapter 8: Special Effects

would start with all collisions enabled, select

each adjoining pair (LHand and LForeArm,
Spine3 and Head, etc..) and click ">>" to
disable just those pairs.

Preview the animation with collisions disabled:

1. On the Utilities panel > reactor >

Preview & Animation rollout, click Preview in
Window.
The Preview window should open this time A. Twist Axis
without any warnings and everything should B. Plane Axis
behave as expected (no bouncing limbs). C. Twist x Plane Axis (outward)
2. Save your work again, this time as 1. Parent Body
my_character02.max 2. Child Body

The Rag Doll constraint provides three axes of

Using Rag Doll Constraints
In the previous lesson, you finished joining up the
simpler bones in the body. Now it’s time to think
about how to simulate joints such as the hips or
shoulders. These joints are more complex than the
knees or elbow, as they need to allow for rotation
and they have a range of motion of greater freedom
than the hinge constraint provides. To tackle these
types of joints you will use Rag Doll constraints.
These are fairly complex, so this lesson will serve
as a brief overview. The following is a picture of
two objects connected by a Rag Doll constraint:
importance: the Twist Axis, the Plane Axis, and
the Twist x Plane Axis. The twist axis is probably
the easiest to visualize and you can do so by simply
stretching out your arm and rotating it so that
your thumb changes from pointing upwards to
downwards. Your movement is just a series of
rotations along the twist axis of the shoulder and
elbow. In general, the twist axis should follow the
length of the child body in a joint. In reactor you
can specify how far on either side of neutral the
constraint can twist; this need not be symmetric.
 Using Rag Doll Constraints 867

A. Twist Axis
B. Plane Axis
C. Twist x Plane Axis (outward)
1. Twist Min.
2. Twist Max. A. Twist Axis
3. Twist Range B. Plane Axis
C. Twist x Plane Axis (outward)
1. Cone Min.
2. Cone Max.

A. Twist Axis
B. Plane Axis
C. Twist x Plane Axis (outward)
1. Twist Range
A. Twist Axis
The other two axes are interlinked and together
B. Plane Axis
the control the allowed volume that the child body
C. Twist x Plane Axis (outward)
can occupy. So first you’ll have a look at the cone
angles that allow you to specify the volume that the If you imagine the constraint representing your
child may move through: shoulder, the green volume is the range of allowed
positions that your upper arm may occupy.
However, you can refine the allowed volume
further by using the plane axis to enforce plane
868 Chapter 8: Special Effects

limits. These limits are used to generate two

further cones:

A. Twist Axis
A. Twist Axis C. Twist x Plane Axis
B. Plane Axis 1. Plane Min. Cone
C. Twist x Plane Axis (outward) 2. Plane Max. Cone
1. Plane
2. Plane Min. Cone
3. Plane Max. Cone
4. Plane Min.
5. Plane Max.

A. Twist Axis
C. Twist x Plane Axis
1. Plane Min. Cone
2. Plane Max. Cone
A. Twist Axis If the volumes do not intersect, the plane limits do
B. Plane Axis not have any effect in the constraint; however, by
C. Twist x Plane Axis (outward) allowing the cones to intersect, and deeming the
1. Plane overlapping volume as invalid body positions, you
2. Plane Min. Cone can limit the allowed positions for the child body
3. Plane Max. Cone further still.
This allows you to create two different scenarios;
one where the cones generated by the plane limits
intersect with cone produced by the cone angles
and the one where they do not:
 Setting Up Hips, Back, Neck and Shoulders 869

Create Rag Doll constraints for the hips:

1. On the Create panel, click Helpers and

choose reactor from the drop-down list.
2. On the Create panel > Object Type rollout,
click Ragdoll.
3. Click in a viewport to create a Ragdoll helper
object.

A. Twist Axis
B. Plane Axis
C. Twist x Plane Axis

These are the parameters that you will be adjusting

in reactor to tweak the behavior of the character.
Hopefully this brief overview will help clarify Rag
Doll constraints a little for you.
Next, you choose which objects to associate
with this constraint.
Setting Up Hips, Back, Neck and
4. On the Modify panel > Properties rollout, click
Shoulders
the button labeled None, next to Child.
Open the sample file:
• You can either continue from where 5. Press H and from the Object Select
you left off or you choose File menu > dialog, choose RThigh and click Pick.
Open and load character02.max from the
The button beside Child should now read
\tutorials\reactor\ragdoll directory.
RThigh.
You will approach this lesson in a similar manner 6. Turn on Parent.
to the hinge constraint lesson in that you’ll go
This tells reactor to constrain two bodies
through one of the joints in detail and then
together.
use a table of parameters to construct the other
constraints. The setup for each Rag Doll constraint 7. Click the button labeled None, next to Parent.
is identical, so once you’ve mastered the first one
you should have no trouble setting up the rest of 8. Press H and from the Pick Object
the character. You start with the hips. dialog, choose Pelvis, then click Pick
The button beside Parent should now read
Pelvis and the scene should look like this:
870 Chapter 8: Special Effects

parameters. Use this table to set up the

remaining Rag Doll constraints in your scene.
Once you’ve created all of the above constraints
your Rag Doll constraints should look like this:

Next, you need to adjust the Rag Doll constraint

limits so that it behaves like a real hip joint:
9. In the Modify panel > Properties rollout >
Limits group, set Twist Min to -5.0 and Twist
Max to 5.0.
The only thing left to do is to add these new Rag
10. Set Cone Min to -25.0 and Cone Max to 55.0.
Doll constraints to your Constraint Solver.
11. Set Plane Min to -45.0 and Plane Max to 2.5.
Add the Rag Doll constraints to the Constraint Solver:
You have completed your first Rag Doll
constraint. Once you have successfully finished
with that constraint, you can move on to 1. Press H and select the CSolver01
completing the rest in a similar fashion. object.

Create Ragdoll constraints for the back, neck, and 2. On the Modify panel > Properties rollout,
shoulders: click Add.
• The table below gives a list of the constrained
bodies, the constraint name and the constraint
Cone Cone Plane Plane
Constraint Name Child Parent Twist Min Twist Max
Min Max Min Max
RHipJoint RThigh Pelvis -5.0 5.0 -25.0 55.0 -45.0 2.5

LHipJoint LThigh Pelvis -5.0 5.0 -55.0 25.0 -45.0 2.5

BackJoint1 Spine1 Pelvis -1.0 1.0 -30.0 30.0 -50.0 5.0

BackJoint2 Spine2 Spine1 -1.0 1.0 -8.0 8.0 -6.0 3.0

BackJoint3 Spine3 Spine2 -1.0 1.0 -8.0 8.0 -6.0 3.0

RShoulderJoint RUpperArm Spine3 -5.0 5.0 -75.0 85.0 -5.0 65.0

LShoulderJoint LUpperArm Spine3 -5.0 5.0 -85.0 75.0 -5.0 65.0

NeckJoint Head Spine3 -5.0 5.0 -45.0 45.0 -15.0 15.0

 Creating the Animation 871

3. Select all the objects (Rag Doll constraints) and

click Select.
Now the Constraint Solver has all of the
constraints in it and the scene is ready to
preview once again. First, save your scene.
4. Choose File menu > Save As and save the file as
my_character03.max

Preview your character:

• On the Utility panel > reactor > Preview

& Animation rollout, click Preview In Window.
Now your character should tumble down the
stairs properly.

Create and play the animation:

Creating the Animation
Now that the simulation is working correctly, it’s
time to create the animation. Since you don’t want
to see the bone objects and the constraints in your
animation, the first thing you’ll do is hide them.
Open the sample file:
• Continue from the previous lesson or choose
File menu > Open and choose character03.max
from the \tutorials\reactor\ragdoll directory.
Hide the bones of the character:
1. Press H and on the Select Objects
dialog, choose the skin, the floor, and all 16
steps, and then click Select.
2. On the Display panel > Hide rollout,
click Hide Unselected.
Now you should only be able to see the skin of
your rag doll.
1. On the Utility panel > reactor > Preview
& Animation rollout, click Create Animation.
2. Once the animation calculations have
completed, click on the viewport of your choice
and click Play.
And that’s a wrap! It’s up to you now to tweak
the various parameters on the rag doll to alter its
behavior as it tumbles down the stairs. You may
find some joints are too loose or tight: reduce
or increase the limits accordingly. You can give
both halves of the rag doll’s body different settings
to encourage it to fall in a given direction. Try
changing its initial position and orientation or add
some obstacles on the stairs.
You can see the final result of this tutorial
by opening characterEnd.max from the
\tutorials\reactor\ragdoll directory.
Summary
You can use the reactor constraints to hold a
character together, and control how it behaves
during falls, collisions, and other physical
encounters.
872 Chapter 8: Special Effects