Reactor

The Reactor

Today in class we learn the reactor tool, this allowed us to create animation which could do a variety of different things, for example a bouncy ball, or make weighted objects roll or move along a surface.
To start I had to open the reactor menu, to do this I right clicked in the grey space next to the render button, and selected ‘Reactor’.

Next I created a rectangle and rotated it to give it a slant, next I created two spheres which would be animated to roll down the ramp.

I then selected create rigid body selection which then opened a new window on the right hand side, on there I had the option to ‘pick’ an object, so I picked all three of the objects I created, which was the rectangle ramp, and the two spheres.

I then clicked on property editor which is in the reactor toolbar, and then clicked on a sphere, on here I could add weight to the spheres, this would determine how quickly they would move on the ramp, and how quickly they would fall.

I then simply pressed ‘preview animation’ which is the second from last option on the reactor tool bar, and played the animation, which successfully dropped the balls and made them roll down the ramp.

On the property editor there is a selection of options which can be selected for appropriate animation, some of the options include; bounding box and mesh convex hull, these different selections will be used for the appropriate shapes, for example the convex hull would be used for shapes with a convex, the correct selection is important, otherwise the execution from the animation will not look right.

Unfortunately I don’t feel that this is an animation technique which will be included in my final animation, however it is definitely a useful technique to have learned for the future, It could be useful for making a ball bounce, or for creating a ripple effect on water.