Multiple soft body simulation

[AJ Jefferies]

I've had various degrees of success in setting up simple soft body simulations in Max using different methods (mparticles, flex, cloth modifier...etc.) but I've recently tried to find a solution for simulating multiple soft bodies interacting with one another and I'm struggling.

I realise that this is something that Houdini and Realflow can handle very well but before I accept defeat and buy/attempt to learn one of these, I thought I'd ask if anyone knows of a good method or plugin that would allow me to simulate large numbers of soft bodies inside 3ds Max?

This is the sort of thing I'm after:

https://vimeo.com/112199212
https://vimeo.com/155232116

Cheers!

[Mokiki]

I'd think that thinking particles might be your best bet if you want to stay in max. But that is twice as expensive as a houdini indie license. (if you qualify for it)
Other than that I am pretty sure I saw somebody did a similar effect with some pflow trickery but I don't remember exactly who it was.

*edit*
Nvm I found it: https://vimeo.com/6757009
Maybe this helps.

[oophus]

https://ephere.com/plugins/autodesk/max/lucid/

I have no experience with that, but I just remember it had soft body sims.
Would that work? Its for GPU though, so it has limitations I bet.

[AJ Jefferies]

Thanks!

I hadn't seen Anselm's video before. He definitely knows his stuff, so I will take a look! I also completely forgot about thinking particles. It might just be that I can justify it for this project...

As for Lucid, I tried the demo but it crashed every couple of minutes, so I don't think I can justify buying it just yet.

Thanks again!