MayaHowTos, the Youtube Channel for Autodesk Maya posts a look at creating some effects around a Reactor theme where Maya’s nDynamics including nParticles and nCloth will be used to create the effects.

The Plasma Core effect of the Reactor will be created with Maya’s nParticle System using a simple Directional Emitter. An interesting note is shown when mentioned that the same particles can be re-used, and show how to emit the same nParticles from two different emitters to conserve resources.

The nParticles will wrap around an invisible object by using a passive collider created from a sphere polygon. This will have the particles appear to slide around the surface of the sphere by using an attracting force field.

The second part of the tutorial looks at creating a force field effect by using the Maya nCloth system.

Autodesk also provides the Maya Scene and Project Files so you are able to follow along or pick apart the tutorial – get the Maya Scene Files for Creating a Plasma Core Reactor with nDynamics [direct link] here.