Simulate rigid-body physics
Drop objects, bake a simulation, and let it drive the render.
Let a rigid-body solver drive an object instead of hand-keyframing it — good for dominoes, bouncing balls, and collision demos.
Enable physics on an object
- Select a 3D solid.
- In its Phys tab, click Enable physics.
- Set Type:
- Dynamic — falls under gravity, collides, bounces.
- Static — an immovable collider (floor, wall, ramp) that dynamic bodies can hit but that never moves itself.
- Set Hull (collision shape) — Auto derives it from the solid's geometry, or force Box/Sphere.
For dynamic bodies, also set:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Mass | kilograms |
| Bounce (restitution) | 0 = dead stop on impact, 1 = perfectly elastic |
| Frict | surface friction — 0 is ice, ~1 is grippy |
| Initial velocity (X/Y/Z) | starting linear velocity, units/s |
| Initial spin (X/Y/Z) | starting angular velocity, rad/s about each axis |
Set the scene's physics world
At the scene level, set gravity (a 3-axis vector — the app is z-up, so gravity typically points in −z) and whether a ground plane exists for objects to land on.
Bake it
Press Bake simulation (Scene panel). This runs the solver forward once, start to finish, and records a dense per-frame position + rotation track for every dynamic body.
Once baked, physics wins over keyframes for that object — the same priority a Manim per-frame updater would have. The baked track drives both the live preview and the final render; any position/rotation keyframes you'd set manually on a baked object are overridden. Discard the bake (trash icon next to the "Baked · N frames" badge) to go back to keyframing it yourself.
Re-bake after changing mass, restitution, friction, initial velocity, gravity, or scene layout — the baked track doesn't update itself.
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