Dagnabit. Rendo ate my reply and I didn't even realize it. Yeah, run the physics FIRST and save the keyframes. A lot less hair-pulling that way if you have to tweak the materials and starting velocities and so forth. Once you got the physics nailed down, switch it off and render the animation.

If physics is still taking a real long time, do the simulation withlow-poly stand-ins. Then it's what, copy and paste the keyframes? I remember doing this but I don't remember how I did it... BTW: The first physics run I did for an actual image took six hours. That was on an ancient powermac, tho, and I was trying to generate the results of dropping an armful of fantastical weapons on a set of stone stairs. The next time I used it practically was on a g3 powerbook and it was fast enough to be a good alternative to hand-placing an ornate dagger on a table (using physics, I just allowed it to settle naturally to the table's surface. Then I rendered the still).

Message edited on: 10/03/2004 13:41