Autodesk’s Daryl Obert shows how you can create a complex interaction between a model of a well, its rope, and the bucket that can be lowered into it.

A quick demo on how to set a bucket dropping into a well using nHair for the rope.

This is great example of using Maya’s dynamics system and constraint nodes to generate a complex interaction between objects that are meant to be rigid and objects that are meant to be more malleable. Rigid dynamics will cover things like the crank and Maya’s nHair can be used for a dynamic curve, handling the simulation for the rope.

The bucket needs to be attached to the to the well through to its crank, but also be connected to the rope that will lower and raise it. One of the benefits of having a unified dynamics system like Maya has with its nDynamics, is that everything can work together in unison.

Other application might need expressions or other functions that lie outside the dynamics system to achieve the same result. In Maya however, you can use nHair for the rope, and some constraint nodes to attach it and make it behave much like it would in real life.

If you follow along, in the end you should be able to turn the crank and raise and lower the bucket into the well using Maya’s interactive playback.