If I create a Dynamic Network and make a sphere roll down an inclined ground plane, how do I make it “sticky” to arrest its motion along the surface rather than sliding off quickly? The Friction parameter in the Physical tab appears to only affect tangential velocity (rate of object roll) so is of no use.

Try dropping down a Drag Force node.

@Enivob

Thanks. I am so new to Houdini I don't even know how to use the Drag Force. Would I connect it under the bulletsolver? Wat paramter do I change to affect the rolling sphere on a ground plane?

Place the Drag node, inside the AutoDopNetwork, before the final output, which has the ORANGE flag.

I have added the node, I had to crank up the parameter values much more than expected to see any affect. I thought it wasn't working at first. Presumably you use groups to target specific objects with specific forces?

This works if you have one object rolling down an inclined plane as you can set which axis to slow it on. But if you have many spheres falling on a large sphere, this would require a Drag force for each sphere to target its direction. Is there no other way to make the spheres “sticky”?

Add friction to the spheres, and friction to the ground plane.

You can set particles to stick, have you tried that?

@Enivob: I did not know you could stick particles. Do you mea a particle system or a dynamic sim using geometry, like spheres? Where do I find the setting to make them stick?

@Midassilver: Friction, as I mentioned, only affects tangential velocity, not friction in the direction of movement, I believe.