Inflate Objects with Maya nCloth

Ever wonder how you can inflate objects with Maya nCloth? Although fairly easy to work with, dynamics in Maya can leave you a little overwhelmed if you are just starting out. Here, Stuart Christensen covers the basics for using nCloth, and specifically, using nCloth to inflate objects in Maya.

some basics of working with nCloth to inflate objects

nCloth, is fairly straight forward, and for this tutorial, Stuart focuses on the “Pressure” section of the nCloth attributes which will be used to inflate objects in Maya.

As Maya’s nDynamics system is a unified dynamics solver, it is built to plug and play with other nDynamics systems, such as rigid bodies, particles, etc. This will allow you to mix and match effects, which is what Stuart does here, adding some rigid collision objects for the inflating object to interact with, making for an more interesting scene. As with any dynamics simulation, it is fun to change parameters and watch the effects. So if you are new to nDynamics is Maya, have fun following along so you will be able to Inflate Objects with Maya.

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More Resources for Working With Maya nCloth

The flexibility of using cloth systems offer much more than simple cloth-like effects. Once you understand that it is another dynamics function, you can create a multitude of effects. Over the last while we have had an opportunity to display some of Maya’s nCloth uses in some other tutorials:

Alex Twigg walks through the process of creating a bat or dragon type wing in Autodesk Maya and shows how to use nCloth dynamics for the stretched wing membranes and giving them some realistic dynamic and secondary animation-  check out Creating a Bat’s Wing Rig in Maya Incorporating Both Joints and nCloth.

John Chen offered a behind the scenes look at using nCloth in Maya to create a character that interacted with hedges and leaves with the post Creating Character Reactive Dynamic Leaves and Vines in Maya Using nCloth and nParticles.

Pat Imrie has a tutorial looking at creating sticky and viscous fluids , creating sticky saliva Creating a Sticky Fluid Using Maya nCloth. Pat also used nCloth as a quick solution to creating simple fluid dynamics such as liquid in a jar – Creating Quick Fluids using Maya’s NCloth.

Of course, you can use nCloth for… Cloth like effects, and here is a look at creating a flag waving in a looped animation Using a blendCache Node in Maya to Create a Looping nCloth Simulation.

Alexander Ponomarev shows how to create an animated cracking effect in a road- Create a Cracking Road Effect Using An nCloth System in Maya.