Kickstarting the Machine

Our Rube Goldberg machine begins with an alarm clock ringing, and its hammer striking a match. Today I procedurally animated the motion of the alarm clock hands, the movement of its hammer, the vibration of the clock when it goes off, and the burst of flame that it causes. The flame is achieved via Maya's built in fire effect, and it's "density" attribute is tweaked inside of an animation expression to make the flame begin just after the hammer begins moving. Here's a fully-rendered look at what I've just described: