If you really, and I mean REALLY, want to blow someone's mind introduce them to the mathematics behind fluid mechanics. Yes, you are using mathematics to model how a fluid acts in a given situation. That's some serious, serious number crunching. This means two things: first, using Dynamics in Maya to simulate fluids and fluid-like substances is absolutely breath-taking; secondly, it means your computer is going to grind to a near halt attempting to do all the math! What is more amazing is the number of variables that you can tweak on a Maya fluid is quite large – you can do a LOT with it. We've already simulated squirting red dye into a glass of water (which slowed my home computer down so much that I thought it had crashed), simulated the Sun (which is fantastic since I love space simulations so much) and now – drum roll please – we're working on clouds. Dynamic clouds that will be able to be affected by wind and time. So, I can hear you to asking yourself, why not just use a picture of clouds and plunk it down behind the model of the airplane you just built? I'll tell you why, because I want to fly that model THROUGH the clouds and follow it with a camera. Understand that one of my great joys is playing a flight simulator called IL-2 Sturmovik, and the clouds in the game are great looking, but static. Now, in the newest version of this game the developers are touting the fact that they are going to have dynamic clouds – ones that would move, be affected by weather conditions, wind, and time of day. I wasn't that impressed until this week, when I learned just what goes into all of that. I'm really looking forward to delving further into fluids. The math is impossible to get my head around, but I do enjoy the end results.
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