3D Studio MAx 2008 - familiarizing the reactor tools
In 3D Studio Max 2008 new reactor tools panel were added to aid us making the most possible realistic animation movements and reaction to a particular environment water in just a few clicks like animating the movement of a cloth, creating the effects of a falling ball with its realistic movement, creating water effects and even making an object explode etc.
The reactor tool bar provides quick access to many of the objects and commands for the reactor dynamics tool set that you can use instantly. And for better understanding here are some of the functions and usability of the buttons in the reactor tool bars.
Toy Car
The reactor Toy Car is a quick way to create and simulate a simple car without having to set up each constraint separately.
Fracture
The Fracture helper object simulates the breaking of a rigid body into a number of smaller pieces as the result of an impact. To do this, you need to supply the pieces that are glued together to create the whole object. This is known as “pre-fracturing.” reactor does not break the pieces you supply into smaller pieces.
Rigid Body Properties
You assign physical properties, simulation geometry, and display properties to a rigid body using the Rigid Body Properties rollout or dialog.
The Real-Time Preview
It’s useful to be able to preview reactor simulations from within 3ds Max. The Preview Window lets you view and interact with a simulation in real time. You can run the simulation, interact with the objects in the scene using the mouse, and even update your objects in 3ds Max with their current state in the preview.
Cloth Modifier
The Cloth modifier lets you to turn any geometry into a deformable mesh, allowing you to simulate the behavior of objects such as curtains, clothes, metal sheets, and flags. You can specify a number of special properties for cloth objects, including stiffness and how the object folds.
Soft Body Modifier
The Soft Body modifier lets you turn a rigid body into a closed, deformable, 3D triangular mesh, thus creating objects that can be flexed, bent, and squashed during the simulation. You can specify physical properties for soft bodies, including stiffness, mass, and friction.
Plane
The reactor Plane object is a type of rigid body that acts as a fixed, infinite plane in the simulation.
Rigid Body Collection
The Rigid Body Collection is a reactor helper object that acts as a container for rigid bodies. Once you have added a Rigid Body Collection to your scene, you can add any valid rigid bodies in the scene to the collection.
Cloth Collection
The Cloth Collection is a reactor helper object that acts as a container for Cloth objects. Once you have added a Cloth Collection to your scene.
Point-Point Constraint
The Point-Point (point-to-point) constraint lets you attach two objects together, or an object to a point in world space. It forces its objects to try to share a common point in space. The objects can rotate freely relative to each other, but always have the attachment point in common. When you set up the constraint, the point is defined in the object space of each object involved. During the simulation the constraint tries to apply forces to the objects so that the two pivot points defined by the two objects match.
Soft Body Collection
The Soft Body Collection is a reactor helper object that acts as a container for soft bodies. Once you have created a Soft Body Collection, you can add any soft bodies in the scene to the collection.
Rope Modifier
You can create a reactor Rope using any spline object in 3ds Max. The Rope modifier turns the object into a deforming, one-dimensional chain of vertices. You can use rope objects to simulate ropes, as well as hair, chains, fringing, and other rope-like objects.
Rag Doll Constraint
The Rag Doll constraint lets you realistically simulate the behaviour of body joints, such as hips, shoulders, and ankles. Once you decide the degree of movement a joint should have, you can model it by specifying limiting values for the Rag Doll constraint.
Wind
The Wind helper object lets you add wind effects to reactor scenes, allowing you, for instance, to make curtains flap in the breeze. After adding the helper to your scene, you can configure various properties for the effect such as its speed, gusts, and whether objects in your scene can be sheltered from the wind. You can animate most of these parameters. The orientation of the helper icon indicates the direction of the wind: It blows in the direction of the weathervane arrow. You can also animate this direction by animating the icon’s orientation.
Motor
The Motor helper lets you apply a turning force to any non-fixed rigid body in the scene. You can specify the angular velocity for the target and the maximum angular impulse the Motor can apply to achieve this velocity.
Deforming Mesh Collection
The Deforming Mesh Collection is a reactor helper object that acts as a container for deforming meshes . Once you have placed a Deforming Mesh Collection in your scene, you can add any deforming meshes in the scene to the collection. .
Water Space Warp
You can use the Water space warp to simulate the behaviour of a liquid surface in your reactor scene. You can specify a size for the water, and physical properties such as density, wave speed, and viscosity.
Point-Path Constraint
The Point-Path constraint allows you to constrain two bodies so that the child is free to move along a specified path relative to the parent. Alternatively, you can create a single-bodied version of the constraint, where the constrained body can move along a path in world space. The child body’s orientation is not restricted by the constraint.
Spring
The Spring helper lets you create a spring-like effect between two rigid bodies in the simulation, or between a rigid body and a point in space. During the simulation, the spring exerts forces on the attached bodies in an attempt to maintain its rest length. So, for instance, if the objects are pulled apart so that the spring attachment points are further apart than the rest length, the spring works to bring them back together again.
Linear Dashpot
Dashpots typically server to cushion impact. An example of a real-world linear dashpot is the hydraulic cylinder in an automobile shock absorber. The Linear Dashpot constraint lets you constrain two rigid bodies together in the simulation, or to constrain one body to a position in world space. It behaves like a heavily damped spring with zero rest length. You can specify the strength and damping, and whether collisions between the attached bodies are disabled.
Angular Dashpot
Dashpots typically serve to cushion impact. An example of a real-world angular dashpot is a device connected to a door to keep it from slamming shut. You can use the Angular Dashpot constraint to constrain the relative orientation of two rigid bodies, or the absolute orientation of a rigid body in world space. When simulating, the dashpot exerts angular impulses on the bodies to which it is attached in an attempt to maintain the specified rotation between the objects. You can specify the dashpot’s strength and damping, and whether collisions between the system’s bodies are disabled.
Rope Collection
The Rope Collection is a reactor helper object that serves as a container for ropes. Once you have placed a Rope Collection in your scene, you can add any ropes in the scene to the collection. You can find out more about ropes in the Rope Modifier section.
Hinge Constraint
The Hinge constraint allows you to simulate a hinge-like action between two bodies. reactor lets you specify an axis in local space for each body, with a position and a direction. During the simulation, the two axes attempt to match position and direction, thereby creating an axis around which the two bodies can rotate. Alternatively, you can hinge a single body to an axis in world space.
Prismatic Constraint
The Prismatic constraint serves as a constraint between two rigid bodies, or a rigid body and the world, that allows its bodies to move relative to each other along one axis only. Rotations, as well as the remaining two translation axes, are fixed. For example, you could use a Prismatic constraint when creating a forklift truck.
Constraint Solver
The Constraint Solver acts as a container for the cooperative constraints in a particular Rigid Body Collection , and performs all the calculations necessary for the constraints to work together.
Car-Wheel Constraint
You can use this constraint to attach a wheel to another object; for instance, a car chassis. You can also constrain a wheel to a position in world space. During the simulation, the wheel object is free to rotate around a spin axis defined in each object’s space. Linear motion is allowed for the wheel along a suspension axis. You can also add limits to the wheel’s movement along this axis. The constraint’s child body always acts as the wheel, while the parent acts as the chassis.
A sample of 3D animation I made using Reactor tools
First make a big 3D block on the base of your scene and add a small block just a bit higher than the first block you created block (to create the blocks go to create> standard primitives> blocks ) and then rotated the small block about 45% to give it a nice sliding angle (to rotate the block select the block first then go to edit> rotate> then just drag the yellow line helper in the object to the angle you desire ) then create a spear on top of the small block (to create the spear go to create> standard primitives> spear )
after that highlight the 2 blocks you created then press the Create Rigid Body Collection on the reactor and the rigid system will automatically be integrated to the two blocks. What actually happens is the reactor system marks the two object as an obstacle or something that can be hit by something. panel ( if you cant see your reactor panel just right click your existing panel below the menu bar then put a check on the reactor ) Then highlight the spear then click the Create Soft body collection button to add some realistic effects and movement to the spear when animated. click the create animation on the reactor panel then click the preview animation to view your work. That’s it you just made an animation with gravity, movement, texture, reaction effects in less than 5 minutes. Just try to play around with all the 3D Studio Max 200 reactor tools and you will discover more simple to use effects with great and amazing results.
I had much fun playing around with this reactor tools in 3D Studio Max 2008 they are really very useful and less time consuming tools for making animations. Its like a built in plug-in in 3D studio Max 2008, I remembered before that in order to make those kind of effects you will need to do 4 or 5 moves before you can make the effects. So for today’s review of 3D Studio Max 2008 I’m giving it.
Rating: 
Reason: I had much fun playing with the reactor tools, I must say “ Its Great Animation Effects Made Simple”
