My dad used to make marble machines like this out of leftover CNC parts and wood for retirement gifts. He really enjoyed the projects and they always looked stunning and functioned flawlessly. You could turn it on and the marbles would cycle through the track forever. That was my inspiration to make this loopable animation in 3DS Max. Just like my dad, the engineer, I got to use a lot of math to make this possible. Calculating the gear ratios, cogs, and timing of the ball to cycle, I built some basic wire parameters in Max to make it all rotate and release a ball based on time and degree of rotation. Truly, that is what I'm really showcasing with this piece. Putting a non-procedural texture on the big wheel was my only mistake, forcing me to render 9 marble cycles before the wheel made a full 360 degree rotation for that seamless loop. Making this video be 9 times longer than I desired. Rendered with mental ray.