I really enjoyed making this physics simulation tutorial. Mainly, because Cavalry added a number of functionalities with Cavalry 2.6 release – Path Fields, Groups and more. This makes it easy to essentially steer and direct simulations inside Forge.

Pair it with Collision Events and some filter styling and you have a nice “microscopic” view scene.

I covered most of the features available in Path Field. But you should check out official documentation in case things change with new release. Here are few tips that you should consider, when styling your Path Fields:

• Body Density matters – this act as weight or mass. It takes more force to push through a composition full of heavy bodies, if they are really Dense. Lower their density to have more acceleration
• Flow Force helps you move objects “down” the path. However, if you combine high Flow Force + tight corners + heavy objects, then they may shoot out of your path
• Use Draw Capture and Flow Margin tools to help you visualise your path forces – this is great “helper” tool that that can help spot potential problems. For example, forces overlapping each other at “tight corners” etc

Groups addition to Cavalry’s Forge Dynamics is really powerful. It acts as a “tag”. You can “tag” groups of objects inside Forge Dynamics, to affect them in specific ways. For example, spin shapes A with Vortex Field. Push shapes B with Direction Field and so on. We only used a simple example in this tutorial, but you should get an idea what you can do with it. In the future, I will make more tutorials that will use Groups “tags” for sure.

Collision Events are great in further styling and directing the Forge Simulation. They are a great indicator of an “event” or collision happening. If shape A hits shape B = change colour, type of thing.

One limitation of Color Collision Event that I encountered, is that it changes “base” colour of the shape inside Forge Dynamics. This may be a bit problematic, if you have some styling that you want to preserve. In the past I had to use Color Collision Event as a “base” or initial Shape’s Fill styling, before colour changes happened on impact.

Below you can see the simulation that we did during tutorial. And similar one, styled with filters to highlight the effect of collisions and colour changes.