Today in class we learnt how to use the reactor physics engine built into 3D Studio. It is based on the popular Havok physics engine so it is easy to use- simply add the reactor properties to the object then adjust the parameters to create the desired effect.
After learning how to use reactor by making a basic bowling lane, I tried something more sophisticated. The ball weighed 1kg and was a rigid body object, the soft body mattress weighed 6kg and the "brick wall" 350kg. The friction was low (0.1) on the ball and high (0.8,1.0) on the mattress and wall. The ball hits the mattress which deforms then bounces off the brick wall. To start the ball moving, I created an auto key sequence which accelerated the ball. The reactor sequence started halfway through the keyframes so it kept the momentum.
Although the settings are not accurate/"earth" numbers, they still look reasonably realistic apart from the gravity. This is because the scene is so huge that reactor's default gravity looks slow. To adjust this, I would change the scale (it is currently 1 unit = 39m) or turn the gravity up.
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