Place the scene H_Dreads03.max in your MAX/Scenes folder, and the bitmaps Cloud2.jpg and Spliff.tif in your MAX/Maps folder. This is a very simple demonstration of how a Follow Constraint and some simple Sub-Object level use of HyperMatter can transform a mundane scene into something astonishingly realistic, and which would be incredibly difficult to create using normal animation methods.

The scene consists of a cartoon Rasta head, which has been keyframed to rotate and nod up and down. The dreadlocks are a separate MAX object, that has been Solidified at Object level with HyperMatter, and attached to the head by use of the Follow Constraint.

This is similar to the linking tool in MAX with the advantage of either rigid or smooth following, for highly realistic behaviour. We selected a part of the HyperMatter mesh, using the normal MAX Sub-Object selection tools, named it, and applied the Follow Constraint to it, choosing the head as the object we want it to follow.

Using the default substances initially, play the animation. You can see that the dreadlocks swing round with the head, although they are very soft and stretchy. You need to modify the Substance properties to enable the dreadlocks to respond to the stresses of the animation better. Remember, the substances you make have REAL properties, so if they are undergoing severe movements, at high speeds, they need to be strong enough to deal with them.

Go to the Substances panel, and change Dimension to 8, Elasticity and Incompressibility to 1.5, and Damping to 3.

Now play the animation again, and you will see that the dreadlocks now swing around much more convincingly, supporting their own weight, and still taking all their motion from the simple keyframes we originally set up.

Now right-click on the hat and spliff of the character, and select ‘Enable’ for each object to make HyperMatter active. These two objects have been solidified at Sub-Object level instead of Object-level, which means they still take their motion from the original keyframes, without the use of the Follow constraint. They are effectively still under the control of MAX, but have HyperMatter parts that can bounce around in the ‘Real’ world.

When all three elements are animated, the result is a combination of complex movements that would be virtually impossible to animate using any other techniques, and certainly nowhere near as quickly!

HyperMatter enables you to add wild and crazy physical effects to objects with such ease, that you will now be able to explore a huge animation domain that was previously out of reach to anyone but skilled traditional animators.

Click on the image to download an AVI of the scene.