[maccard]

Rigid body simulations are much much simpler. There’s a siggraph course from 2001 [0] which is a bit of a dense read but it will bring you all the way up to a full blown rigid body simulation and understanding the math behind it too.

[0] https://graphics.pixar.com/pbm2001/pdf/notesg.pdf

[aDyslecticCrow]

Ive done one myself. Very fun and very valuable project, with alot of optional deapth.

Solar system simulation is another fun one, leaning more into nummerical differental equations solving.

[beardyw]

Though in this case there's not much more than 500 points, which even if you scale up is manageable.

[maccard]

It’s less about the number of points and scaling and more about understanding the fundamentals. Any sort of particule simulation (which is the easiest way to get into cloth, soft body and fluid dynamics) requires about the first half of that paper I linked anyway.