What you can do with Maya Dynamics

User Guide > Dynamics and Effects > Dynamics > About Dynamics >

Create, color, and animate particles (see Overview of particles).
Use emitters to launch particles for effects such as steam, fire, rain, fireworks, and explosions (see Emitters).
Use soft bodies to create geometry that bends and deforms when influenced by a field or struck by a collision object (see Soft bodies).
Use gravity and other force fields to move particles, soft bodies, and rigid bodies (see Overview of fields).
Create collisions between particles or soft bodies and geometry. You can make the particles split, emit new particles, or disappear when they collide with geometry (see Particle collisions).
Use goals to make particles or soft bodies follow other objects or object components (see Goals).
Use springs to give soft bodies and groups of particles internal structure (see Springs).
Use rigid bodies to create collisions between polygons or NURBS (see Rigid bodies).
Use constraints to restrict the motion of rigid bodies (see Rigid body constraints).
Use built-in dynamic effects to quickly create complex, popular animations such as smoke and fire (see Overview of effects).
Tune playback efficiency and fix common problems with dynamics (see Animating with dynamics).
Store dynamic simulations either to disk or to memory (see Particle caching).
Use the Dynamic Relationship editor to connect and disconnect dynamic relationships between objects and fields, emitters, or collisions (see Dynamic relationship editor).
Render particles in software or hardware (see Rendering particles).
Work with advanced features of particles such as substituting animated geometry for moving particles (see Advanced particle topics).