3D Metropolis

Download the animation:
dynamics.avi (400×225, 3.3MB, MPEG4)
-or-
dynamics.mpg (352×198 5.6MB MPEG1)

Now:

This was my first attempt to inject realism into my 3d animation, leading to my discovery that it’s not easy to do.

Dynamics (and ray tracing, as in the clear top to the chute) have grown up a lot since then, for which I’m thankful. 3DS Max’s built in dynamics algorithms around R2.5 days were frustratingly unpredictable; I spent a lot of time making extremely minor tweaks to variables for the capsule and the chute, only to see it take unbelievable bounces or accelerate wildly out of the solution. No logically fashioned dynamics solution should require as much trial and error for such a seemingly simple interaction.

Just a bit later, Havok came along and made everything in the dynamics solution world fun. I do not currently have the interest (or time) in making gratuitous animation just to play with dynamics, but Havok (3DS Max dynamics module of choice) makes it extremely inviting.

I do remember having fun building the robotic arm. Having figured out inverse kinematics, I suddenly had a desire to construct something with several joints and degrees of motion, then watch them all articulate as I dragged around a single target dummy. The arm is actually fashioned after a fun junior high school tech project, a wooden arm a friend and I built which was controlled by hydraulics (read: large syringes filled with water, connected to tubing and a row of other large syringes which functioned as our control panel).

Then:

Dynamics Demo is an animation I created to illustrate dynamics capabilities in Discreet 3D Studio Max. The demonstration centers around engineering applications, but that by itself was not very interesting from a visual standpoint, so I introduced a robotic arm that would move the capsules around and reduce the boredom factor.

The premise of the animation is a generic system, a part of some sort of manufacturing process which requires these capsules to be transported to the next stage. Ideally the robotic arm will pick up each capsule and drop it down the chute, where it will bounce into the collector and be channeled down the tube to its destination. However, the arm is sped up after the first couple of capsules and becomes less accurate with its drops. One capsule bounces out of the collector completely and another capsule fails to leave the chute, trapping the next capsule with it.

Dynamics Demo shows potential for analysis of complex physical systems, but it also shows animation and rendering of more practical and realistic subject matter.

This animation was created in February, 2001.