Create Domino Runs in Blender with Procedural Placement and Physics Simulation

Hand-placing dominoes in Blender is the kind of task that makes you question every life choice that led you to 3D. Three hundred pieces. Slight rotation tweaks. Spacing checks. By piece two hundred, your soul has left your body and is somewhere in the next room, scrolling Twitter. CG Matter’s domino run tutorial solves this the smart way: one domino, two modifiers, and physics that does the heavy lifting while you watch.

Modeling a Single Domino That Actually Behaves

The trick starts before any physics gets involved. Build one domino from a basic cube, bevel the edges so it catches light, then move the origin to the bottom face. This matters more than it sounds. If the origin sits in the middle of the piece, the rigid body engine treats it like a wobbly top. Set the 3D cursor to the bottom face with Shift+S and snap the origin to the cursor. Now the domino rests flat on the ground plane instead of hovering like it has opinions about gravity.

Enable Auto Smooth in the Object Data Properties after applying Shade Smooth. Without it, you get weird faceting on the bevels that makes the piece look like it was carved from a bar of soap. Small detail. Huge difference in how the render reads.

Procedural Placement with Array and Curve Modifiers

Once the domino model is clean, add an Array Modifier and set the fit type to Fit Curve. Draw a Bezier curve in the shape you want - spiral, zigzag, figure-eight - and point the Array modifier at it. Blender fills the curve automatically, spacing copies exactly right. Change the curve shape later and the dominoes follow. No manual repositioning. No math.

Then add a Curve Modifier below the Array modifier. This bends the entire array along the path. The order is important - Array first, Curve second. Get it backwards and the pieces scatter like confetti.

One caveat the tutorial flags: tight bends on the curve stretch the geometry. The dominoes warp slightly at sharp corners. Fix it by scaling the path larger, or increase the spacing in the Array modifier so fewer pieces sit on the bend. Neither fix is perfect. Larger paths look better but need more screen real estate. More spacing reduces density. Blender gives you the tools, not the answers.

Setting Up Rigid Body Physics

After applying both modifiers, use Separate by Loose Parts to split the array into individual objects. Each domino is now its own mesh. But the origin is still at the world center from the original object. Run Set Origin to Center of Mass (Volume) on the separated pieces so each one pivots from its own center.

Then assign physics: Rigid Body > Active for every domino, and Rigid Body > Passive for the ground plane. A small UV sphere gets an Animated rigid body tag and is keyframed to roll into the first domino. The sphere physically collides with the chain instead of just intersecting geometry.

Most tutorials skip the next part. Blender’s default rigid body world speed is set to 1. At that speed, the dominoes fall with the glacial patience of actual skyscrapers tipping over. Bump the Rigid Body World Speed to around 3. The chain reaction snaps into place at a believable pace without breaking the simulation. It is the difference between watching paint dry and watching something genuinely satisfying.

Baking and Rendering with Workbench

Once the physics look right, bake the simulation cache. This locks the motion in place and lets you delete the knocker sphere entirely. The cache preserves everything. No need to keep helper objects cluttering the scene.

For rendering, the tutorial uses Blender’s Workbench engine - not Cycles, not Eevee. Workbench renders fast, and with Random Color Per Object, Cavity Shading, Shadows, and Outline enabled, the dominoes read as clean stylized shapes without waiting for a single light bounce calculation. It is a deliberate, practical choice. Sometimes the fastest option is the best option.

The cavity shading gives edge definition that makes each piece pop. The random colors - usually something CG Matter would overthink - here just add visual separation so you can track the chain reaction clearly. It is functional beauty, not decorative fluff.

Recommended Gear for This Tutorial

Watch the Tutorial

Follow along with CG Matter’s original walkthrough to see every step in action.

Level Up Your Blender Setup

The Bottom Line

This workflow is a textbook example of letting modifiers and physics do what keyframes cannot. The procedural setup means you can reshape the domino path, adjust spacing, or swap the piece design without rebuilding the entire scene. The rigid body bake gives you deterministic playback. The Workbench render gives you clean output in minutes, not hours.

The real takeaway is broader than dominoes. Array + Curve is a combination worth memorizing for any repetitive object placement along a path - fences, railings, chains, even procedural vegetation. Rigid body physics with the speed multiplier trick applies to any falling or colliding object animation. And Workbench with cavity and random colors is a legitimate production look for motion graphics, previz, and anything where speed matters more than photorealism.

Build one domino. Bend it along a curve. Let physics handle the rest. Then sit back and watch the chain fall exactly where you told it to. That is the kind of control that keeps you coming back to Blender.