You can create a passive object from any polygon mesh in your scene, and assign it to the same Maya Nucleus solver as the nCloth and nParticle you want it to interact with. Passive objects can interact with other Nucleus objects, but internal Maya Nucleus solver properties and external forces have no effect on them. When you create a passive object, a passive object handle appears on the mesh in the scene view, and the nRigidShape tab appears in the Attribute Editor. You can use the passive object handle to quickly select a passive object’s nRigidShape node, which then becomes the current tab selection in the Attribute Editor.
Passive objects can help you create the realistic behavior of cloth objects coming into contact with non-cloth objects. For example, if you have a character wearing an nCloth shirt, you can make the character’s body a passive object. Then during animation, when the character bends its arm at the elbow, the nCloth would behave as though it has come into contact with the character’s arm. For nParticles, passive objects provide a surface that deflect emitted particles, such as scattering sparks or splashing liquids. Modeled passive objects with concave regions can be filled with a volume of nParticles.
For collisions to take place between a passive object and other Nucleus objects, the Collide attribute must be turned on in the Collisions properties of their respective nodes. In addition, you can set which of your nCloth and passive object’s components (Vertex, Edge, or Face) collide with the Collision Flag drop-down list in the Collisions sections of their respective nodes.
For additional control over your passive object collisions, you can include and exclude components from collisions with the Disable Collision or Exclude Collision Pairs constraints. See nConstraint menu. You can also resolve passive object interpenetration with the Push Out, Trapped Check, and Crossover PushnClothShape or nRigidShape attributes.
For more information on collision creation, see Create and edit nCloth collisions and Set nParticle Collisions properties.