What settings for realistic simulation of steel ball

[AndyJPandy (Anders Sande)]

Hi, I’m trying to make a realistic rigid body simulation with hardened steel balls falling into a container of the same steel material.
Any suggestions for settings for the balls and container to get the most close to real world behaviour?
I have the models geometry setup, but is only fiddling aroud to make it realistic.

I’m running Blender 4.2.3 LTS om a windows system

[dan2 (dan)]

now this is leaning a bit on AI, since I’m not well versed in physics, but this may be a solution -

1. Rigid Body Settings

For the Balls:

• Type: Active
• Mass: Set realistic mass for each ball. Use the real-world density of steel (~7.85 g/cm³) and the volume of your ball to calculate the mass.
• Shape: Sphere (optimized for spherical objects; ensures precise collisions).
• Friction: Low (~0.3–0.4). Steel on steel typically has low friction unless treated.
• Bounciness (Restitution): Moderate (~0.6–0.7). Steel can bounce slightly depending on the surface.

For the Container:

• Type: Passive
• Shape: Convex Hull or Mesh (Mesh is more precise but computationally expensive).
• Friction: Same as the balls (~0.3–0.4).
• Bounciness: Low (~0.1). A solid steel container will absorb less energy.

Which gave me this -
steel_ball.blend (1.6 MB)

[AndyJPandy (Anders Sande)]

dan2, thanks for the reply. I’ll give your settings a try. It seems to look kind a right in your video.