Here’s a more successful example. In this case I’ve assigned to just the first 3 rows, leaving the last row of controls untouched.
Scene File
- cloth_example_v004.ma (967.8 KB)
Here’s some stress-tests to make sure it works on things other than these two animations.
Here’s a close-up on how markers have been assigned.
Notice how we’ve replicated the polygonal faces with boxes. Also notice how each box shape has been offset from its control.
Notes
Some of the less obvious, and mostly optional things about this particular setup.
Solver Type
In the rSolver node, there is an attribute called Solver Type with 2 options - “Stable” and “Strong”. You generally don’t need to edit this as the default is tuned for ragdoll-type characters. But in the case of cloth, I found slightly better results from the Stable option.
Stable is what is commonly used for destruction-like effects, it’s what Houdini typically uses for example. Strong on the other hand is more common in robotics and provides greater strengths at higher values of Stiffness.
Stable vs Strong
Spring Type
Every Marker and both the Pin and Attach Constraints has got an attribute called Spring Type. It’s not normally visible, because the default value covers the vast majority of use cases, especially those involving limbed characters.
But in this case, because we are doing cloth, we can leverage the more elastic results coming out of the Force option.
Acceleration (default)
Defaults work well for limbs, but not so well for cloth. In this case, only the Markers have this option, the Distance Constraints operates on slightly different rules.
Force
In this case, we get a more elastic look but also more similarity to how the Distance Constraints work.
Self Collision
In each of these examples, there is no self-collision. I found better results this way, as the boxes would otherwise collide and get stuck with each other, making the overall cloth behaviour more rigid.
Friction
Both the character and cloak has got a Friction and Bounciness of 0. This is likely what you’d expect, cloth normally slides effortlessly over a body and bounce isn’t really relevant here.
Retargeting
Since only the first 3 rows of controls are assigned, how does the 4th row of controls get any animation? The answer is retargeting! The 4th row will have identical animation to the 3rd, with an added offset.
A little walkthrough is coming up shortly.