Dynamic Fields Linking Techniques                                                  Tutorial By: Srijesh

In Maya like lights, objects can also be linked with the different dynamic fields like gravity, air, turbulence etc. In Maya view port we can create any of these dynamic physical fields in such a way that Maya view port behaves just like a real world environment. To demonstrate this I’ve created a simple scene with two polygon spheres and I’ve renamed them as Ball1 and Ball2. Along with these two spheres I’ve created a gravity field (Dynamics menu set (F5), Fields>Gravity) and an air field (Dynamics menu set (F5), Fields>Air) with default settings as in figure below.

Fig. 1

                Now let’s connect the left sphere or Ball1 with the gravity field and the right sphere i.e. Ball2 with the air field. For this let’s open Dynamic Relationships editor (Window>Relationship Editors>Dynamic Relationships).  As light linking there are also two columns. Left column contains every object along with fields present in view port, whereas right column contains fields that can be connected with objects. Now let’s click the Ball1 in left column. When we click the Ball1 both gravity (gravityField1) and air (airField1) fields will be displayed in right column. As Ball1 remained selected in left column let’s select the gravityField1 in right column of dynamics relationship editor to connect with it. Then the gravityField1 will be highlighted in yellow as figure below. That means the Ball1 has been connected with the gravity field.

Fig. 2

In the same way let’s select the Ball2 in left column and then click on airField1 in right column to connect it with the air field.

Fig. 3

As we connect those balls with fields both balls are converted into an active rigid body.
Now let’s play the animation. Those balls behave as shown in figure below.

Fig. 4

                Since the Ball1 has been connected with gravity field, it drops downward and since the Ball2 has been connected with air field and the default direction of the airField1 is y=1 i.e. upward, the Ball2 moves upward.

                In the same we can connect both spheres with both fields. Hence we can connect any object in view port with as many fields as we like. To disconnect with a certain field, simply unselect i.e. remove highlight from that field in Dynamic Relationships editor.