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Paint Soft Body Weights Tool
Create soft bodies
Use attributes for advanced applications
Special uses of soft bodies
This
section suggests ways to use soft bodies with other Maya features.
For details on the features themselves, see the applicable documentation.
Make a skin a soft body
A skin is geometry that deforms with the movement
of a skeleton. You can make the skin a soft body to cause it to
jiggle with the movement of the skeleton.
To
make a skin a soft body
- Select
the skin.
- Select
Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Soft Body to display
the options window.
- From
the Soft Options menu, select Duplicate,
Make Copy Soft.
- Turn
on Hide Non-Soft Object and Make
Non-Soft a Goal.
- Set Weight less
than 1.
The lower the Weight, the
more the skin jiggles.
- Click
the Create button.
- To
increase jiggle in certain areas, add per particle goal weights
to the soft body and decrease the goal weights in those areas. See
Set goal weights on a per-object basis for
details.
Make a lattice a soft body
To
add an overall jiggle to an object, you can add a lattice to it
and make the lattice a soft body. When the lattice is a soft body,
it is affected by fields. The lattice deforms the object according
to the field affecting it.
By making the lattice a soft body rather than
the object itself, Maya calculates dynamics faster. Also, it is
easier for you to add springs to a lattice than to complex geometry.
TipIf you are going to use the lattice as a
collision object, match the size of the lattice closely to the size
of the object’s bounding box.
To
make a lattice a soft body
- Select
the lattice.
- Select
Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Soft Body to display
the options window.
- From
the Soft Options menu, select Make
Soft.
- Click
the Create button.
- Connect
the soft body to the field you want to use to deform the object.
Make a wire a soft body
A wire is a curve that deforms an object.
If you make a wire a soft body, you can connect it to fields to
deform it.
To
make a wire a soft body
- Select
the wire.
- Select
Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Soft Body to display
the options window.
- From
the Soft Options menu, select Make
Soft.
- Click
the Create button.
- Connect
the soft body to the field you want to use to deform the object.
Make an IK spline curve a soft body
An
IK spline curve is a curve that controls a skeleton. If you make
an IK spline curve a soft body, you can use fields to affect its
motion.
To
make an IK spline curve a soft body
- Select
the IK spline curve.
- Select
Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Soft Body to display
the options window.
- From
the Soft Options menu, select Make
Soft.
- Click
the Create button.
- Connect
the soft body to the field you want to use to deform the motion.
Make a motion path a soft body
A
motion path is a curve that controls the motion of an object. If
you make a motion path a soft body, you can connect it to fields
to change the motion.
To
make a motion path a soft body
- Select
the motion path.
- Select
Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Soft Body to display
the options window.
- From
the Soft Options menu, select Make
Soft.
- Click
the Create button.
- Connect
the soft body to the field you want to use to deform the motion.
Make a model from a soft body
If
you make an object a soft body, you can use fields or expressions
to deform the object, then duplicate the deformed object at a frame
to create a new object.
To
make a model from a soft body:
- Select
the object.
- Select
Soft/Rigid Bodies > Create Soft Body to display
the options window.
- From
the Soft Options menu, select Make
Soft.
- Use
a field or expression to deform the soft body.
- Play
the animation and stop it when the soft body is deformed as desired.
- Select
the soft body.
- Select
Edit > Duplicate to display
the options window.
- In
the options window, turn off Duplicate Input Graph and
turn off Duplicate Input Connections,
then click the Duplicate button.
The copy is a snapshot of the soft body at the
current frame.
- In
the Outliner, delete the particle
object indented under the copy.
You can continue to adjust the field or expression
to make additional copies.