Do a Barrel Roll

One of my main models for my project is a barrel, which is going to be used as a background item in the scene and also as a target for the crossbow to shoot at. The design for the barrel itself wasn't too hard, although I did use lots of shapes to create it, and I made sure that it was hollow on the inside. This was also the first time using reactor and learning how it works, as my animation will depend on the use of physics and gravity. To create the barrel shape I first put a box on the scene in the shape of a plank and used the bend tool to warp it slightly. I then cloned this shape and flipped it so that it connected to the first one. I then cloned the two shapes together repeatedly and rotated them to get a circular shape. Looking back on it, it would have made more sense to put an actual circle in the scene to build around.

After all the middle bits of wood were in place, I used a cylinder to create the top and bottom of the barrel and another cylinder to act as a plug in the top of the barrel. I then used some tubes to wrap around the barrel, to hold it together. Once the barrel was complete, I added the texture using the compact material editor, and used the UVW Map modifier to scale it down and wrap it it around the barrel more realistically.

Now we have the finished barrel, it was time to learn about reactor and MassFX. I watched a few videos on youtube that explained the dynamics and basics of reactor, but it was difficult to translate to how I should use it on my barrel. I used the MassFX Rigid Body modifier to make it a dynamic object, however when I previewed simulation, the barrel just explodes everywhere. I suspect this is because I used so many shapes and haven't properly connected them into one shape, but I'm not sure how that is done or if that will produce an undesired result when I actually come to my animation. Either way, this is a problem that I need to figure out how to fix before that time comes. For now, I've got it set as a static object so that it stays still and still has the MassFX Rigid Body modifier.

I cloned the barrel a few times and added some lighting to present the scene better. Even though it didn't work out as intend, I enjoyed the learning experience and once I understand it better, it will prove very useful in future 3d modelling projects.