hi!

this is a cross referencing post from a 3D noob,
piling up the help in the, hopefully, most helpful order.

TAOAM tutorials
in the first post, download the zipped file "Exercise 18: Waving the Flag (Cloth Simulation)" and do
the exercise. this is to get your feet wet& confidence up, it's real quick and easy to do.

Tech Talk Series
in the first post, download "Tech Talk: "Cloth" - Bob Croucher 307 Megabytes!"
yes it's massive, takes forever to download and this is the one you need. really.
never mind taking notes, just watch it till you understand what cloth does.

next, illustrations of basic cloth motion principles, a breeze to browse:
Internal Forces
and
Solver Precision

and before you get going download HomeSlice Simcloth tut and at least read it through.
easier to reference than a film, all concepts explained.

now you're good to go!

EDIT: no you're not - read post #7, then consider yourself initiated!

inspiration:
robcat's sock puppet (i was going to 2D draw my cloth till i saw that!)
Tinkering Gnome's Workshop search for *cloth*. dresscode: beyond belief.

ok i'm done studying cloth, it didn't take 6 months only a week (with two days off!);
a:m stands for a:mazing and it's raining puppies.
one final ground rule is still needed, for safety, it's about all the windows again.
i don't even have a specific question, just the general problem area:
if there are any dos & don'ts for simcloth per window (model/pose/action/chor),
could someone please comment here?

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...l=art+van+cloth


Here's a thread where I discuss some of my learnings... I've generally only simulated cloth in the choreography. General rules: A finer mesh makes for more subtle cloth results, a less dense mesh is easier to work with... you want to find the happy medium. Also, simulations create keyframes for each CP per frame... and those keyframes are editable just like any others in A:M.

Also, Robcat had some good tests doing cloth pants... a search for simcloth pants will find it. Keep at it, and show us what you get!

?

I'd need a more specific question.

Here's some animation from a TV spot using SimCloth and forces... turned out nice.

more goodies and inspiration gathering up, thanks John Bigboote!
didn't mention the pants torture test mainly 'cause the Simcloth forum is so short,
easy to grasp, and that maybe that's not the first thing for a newb.
edit: hang on - - skater's pants.. ok it could be the first thing!


this will probably have to wait a bit!

One thing... When you are watching a cloth simulation progress, there is a Windows 7 bug that may make the display "Not Responding".

This happens if you make any other window on your desktop active, even by just mousing over the Windows start menu.


Solution 1: Don't make anything else active. Watch your sim instead. You need to watch them to know that they are progressing as expected and to abort them if they have gone off the rails.

However, some sims are so lengthy that watching them continuously is not feasible and you would prefer to merely check in on them every few minutes instead while doing something else...

Solution 2:

-Choose a Windows 7 "theme" that has Aero ON. If A:M announces that it is turning Aero OFF when it starts up then you probably have such theme.

-In A:M, in the Options>Global tab, check "Don't disable Aero on startup" and restart A:M

Now you should still be able to use other windows and still switch back to A:M to see it's progress.

With these settings A:M will have the opaque selection box problem, but since you are watching a sim that shouldn't be a big incovenience.

thanks, so much to consider this essential already slipped my mind.