I understand now

Not sure if Maya can do this without some heavy scripting.
(not sure, I've never tried)

Max has something like this built-in (only recently), but I think there might be a person here who MIGHT be able to help you.

His name is Brian Ellebracht, and he is a moderator for our Modeling sections.

He has done animations like this in the past, but I'm not sure if he used straight-up dynamics, or if he keyframed it all, so feel free to ask him

Also ask Danny Ngan in our Melscript forum about any scripts he might know of

Sorry I couldn't be of more help