2009

bodies. You can also restrict the possible movement of your rigid bodies in
the simulation using constraints such as hinges and springs.
This chapter shows you how to create and work with rigid bodies in reactor.
It includes the following topics:
Rigid Body Basics on page 3910
Rigid Body Collection on page 3922
Constraints on page 3925
Plane on page 3999
Motor on page 4001
Toy Car on page 4003
Fracture on page 4010
Storing and Accessing Collisions on page 4019
To find out how to simulate objects that change their shape over time, see
Deformable Bodies on page 4024.
Rigid Body Basics
You can make a rigid body from any geometry in your scene. A rigid body
can be a single object, or it can comprise several objects grouped together,
known as a
compound rigid body on page 3920. If you designate an object whose
geometry changes over time as a rigid body, the simulation uses its geometry
at the start frame.
reactor lets you assign the physical properties that each body will have in the
simulation, such as mass, friction, and whether the body can collide with
other rigid bodies. You can specify a proxy geometry for a rigid body, which
allows reactor to treat the rigid body as an easier-to-simulate shape for the
purpose of the simulation. You can also specify how your rigid body should
be displayed when previewing the simulation.
An object is simulated as a rigid body after you have added it to a
Rigid Body
Collection
on page 3922; you can edit its rigid body properties before or after
you do this.
This section tells you how to:
Edit rigid body
properties on page 3911, including
■
physical properties on page 3912
3910 | Chapter 16 reactor