Create a Realistic Sails with 3DS Max and Reactor

In this tutorial, we are going to create a realistic sails with 3DS Max. You will also learn how to simulate a blowing wind using reactor engine to attan impressing results! So, let’s get started!

Final Result Preview

Modeling 3D Sails

Launch 3DS Max and create a simple mast pole using a few cylinders. Make your mast’s height about 200 Max’s units (placement of other elements is up to you).

Create a plane between upper two horizontal cylinders (as in the image below). That’s our first sail. Change its length and width segments to 30. Make sure your sail doesn’t overlap with the cylinders.

Apply FFD 3×3x3 modifier to the plane.

Click on the small plus button next to the FFD 3×3x3 modifer to roll out its sub-levels and then click “Control Points” tab (1). Select three points in the upper part of your sail and scale them to fit with upper pole (2). Select three points in the middle and shrink them with scale tool as in the image below (3). Select last three points and scale them to fit the down pole (4).

Push middle-bottom point a little bit higher and you should have a nice looking sail.

Reactor Cloth Setup

Apply a new modifier to your sail called “reactor Cloth”, roll it out by clicking on the “+” button next to the modifier’s name again and select Vertex sub-level. Select all the top vertices and two at the bottom (just follow images).

Scroll down in the “reactor’s Cloth” properties to find a button named Fix Vertices. “Constrain to World” should appear in the window below. It will lock in place selected verices during the simulation.

Click on the reactor cloth modifier to leave its vertex sub-level (1). Use move tool (2) to make a copy of your sail (drag down holding shift).

Scale cloned sail a bit to fit in new place.

Now we need to create some reactor helpers. Click on the creation tab (1), choose helpers (2), and create a “CLCollection” (3 and 4). Click “Pick” button and pick both your sails (5 and 6).

Reactor Wind Setup

Create a Wind (it’s under space warps tab). Icon’s arrow shows in what direction your wind is blowing. Swap to left viewport and place it like on image below.

Change wind’s settings.

Ocnce you’ve done everything you can start your simulation. Go to utilities and turn on reactor. Open Preview Animation rollout and click on Create Animation button.

Once the simulation is finished you can check how does it look like by moving time slider back and forth.

You should get similar results to mine.

Now you can add materials, copy your mast several times, add some ropes and setup some better lighting to the scene. That’s the end of this tutorial. If you liked it don’t forget to subscribe to an RSS feed and to give it a vote on Digg or StumbleUpon! Thanks!