Phone and Lamp Dynamics

Dynamics, when they work, are sexy. Who wants to sit there all day and animate a phone cord? I know I don't. So, using Maya's hair system, I made me a automatic phone cord. Nothing fancy here, really. It's a dynamic curve with the follicle at the base of the telephone and a constraint in the handset. The phone base, handle, and desktop are set as collision objects, and the cord itself is a paint effect converted to polygons. Have to keep history, though. During animation and playblasting, I want this thing to move without slowing me down. So, I'll backup the history by one, and let it be a paint effect until the very end. At rendertime, I'll convert it to polygons. Incidental, there is a conversion ceiling--a maximum number of polygons that can be created from paint effects. I didn't know that before. The lamp cord, is also a dynamic curve, but it's driving a spline IK chain. Couldn't think of a way to get paint effects to make all those tiny little chain balls and the flare at the end. To those who would want to know....you create your curve, make it dynamic, and in your spline IK settings, uncheck Auto Create Curve. Select your dynamic curve, and create your spline IK. Voila!