9

Rope 789
Disabled—
When on, the collection and in turn the
bodies it contains are not added to the simulation.
Advanced rollout
Internal Steps—Specifies how many substeps per
keyframeareusedtosimulatethecollection.
Deformablebodiesoftenrequireahigherlevel
of simulation accuracy than rigid bodies, s o you
might need to tweak this value to get realistic
results.
Reset Default Values—Resets Internal Steps to its
default va lue.
Rope
The reactor Rope is a one-dimensional deformable
body (page 2–777). You can use it to simulate rope,
string, hair, etc. Only shapes (page 1–262) can be
simulated as ropes.
This sect ion contains two topics:
• Rope Modifier (page 2–789)
• Rope Collection (page 2–792)
Rope Modifier
Modify panel > Modifier List > reactor Rope
Menu bar > reactor > Apply Modifier > Rope Modifier
reactor toolbar > Apply Rope Modifier button
You can create a reactor Rope using any spline
objectin3dsMax. TheRopemodifierturnsthe
object into a deforming, one-dimensional chain
of vertices. You can use rope objects to simulate
ropes, as well as hair, chains, fr ing ing, and other
rope-like objects.
Aropemustbeaddedtoarope collection (page
2–792) in order to be simulated.
Procedures
To create a rope:
1.
Create the spline-based shape to use to create
the rope. As with all deformable bodies (page
2–777), the underlying topology of this objec t
will influence the rope’s behavior. If the
spline contains only two vertices, then the
rope simulation geometry will have only a
single section and will b ehave in a par ticularly
un-rope-like fashion as a result. More vertices
will allow the rope to bend easily and behave
more realistically.
2. With the object selected, choose one of the
commands listed above.
The Rope modifier appears in the object’s
modifier stack.
To edit a Rope’s physical properties:
1.
SelecttheRopeobject.
2. On the Modify panel, ensure that the reactor
Rope modifier is selected in the modifier stack.