Adventures With Cloth Tool

[Tony Nemo]

I have been using the cloth tool a lot lately to drape a trapezoid plane (created in 3DC and saved as an OBJ) over tree branches to serve as foliage. In operation, the 'plane' divides in the middle making a sort of container or flattened tube which is not desirable if one really wants a plane. Also, the gizmo is not intersecting with the object making it difficult to position the trapezoid. There are no gizmo editing tools with the Cloth tool parameters. When using the Default plane, the gizmo is properly centered on it but not when using one's own model.

[Tony Nemo]

It occurred to me that using the Default Cloth would solve the issue of a wandering gizmo. This worked fine (I was able to position the plane to my satisfaction) until I decided to redo with different Friction. Reset doesn't reset things as one might expect:

 

 

With no way to control position/relative scale, I will think of some other way (Cloth in C4D and import as obj?).

 

Or a "Center to Object" button in the tool options.

 

[AbnRanger]

Yeah...this is part of the problem I have been fussing about for a while, now. Lack of consistency between like tools throughout the app. Including transform gizmos and FFD cages. Andrew often rushes to complete a tool request but that leaves it with stuff missing and not very well thought through. I understand his dilemma, but before finishing any new tool, he should ensure it is 100% consistent with other tools like it, throughout the app. The Tweak Room is a great example. It's transform tools are NOTHING like those in the Sculpt and Retopo rooms.

[Taros]

The cloth tool has very less adjustment options, but if you keep some fundamental points in mind, it works like expected.

 

1. Work with seperate obstacle models as often as possible.

In your case: Keep your origin branch parts seperately and don't melt them with your trunk. Do it later, after the simulation or keep all tree parts in a seperate folder and work with copies. Use your single branches as obstacles for every leaf. This is a way I always try to work. "Nondestructive" is the magic word. But if you need the whole tree for simulation, then you can do it of course. Don't forget: High resolution obstacles need more cpu time.

 

2. When preparing the leaf meshes, move the mesh origin to the leaf root. When importing the leaf mesh into 3D-Coat, the control gizmo will be placed to the origin automatically.

 

3. The most important part: Use ALWAYS meshes from the Retopo room.

 

To use an external mesh from retopo room, import it there. You have some important advantages:

1. The mesh transformation works as expected. You can place and scale your external mesh to the simluation start position.

2. You can set UVs before starting simulation. When the mesh is deformed all uvs stay at then right position. You can bring the cloth mesh completely back to the retopo room and export it from there.

3. You can always reset the simulation to the retopo mesh.

 

Additional infos:

I know this is actually a workaround, because the cloth tool has two bugs:

1. The scaling ignores the cloth mesh origin.

2. The reset function does not work with custom meshes.

 

But it works as I described. I was able to create nice leafs in a first quick test. Give it a try.

Don't forget: you can always move your mesh while the simulation in realtime to correct small problems or reposition it!

 

Best wishes

Chris

[Tony Nemo]

Wow, Chris, thank you for the details! I'll save your note as a reference.

[Tony Nemo]

A mystery action from the Cloth tool:

 

 

What is shown is the original plane and what emerges from the simulation is a pocket (part is hidden to show bottom and top) which covers the underside of the branches  and makes it hard to trim as foliage. So it is no longer a plane but a falafel like object that creates much unneeded geometry and the original plane was retopoed so what happens to the UVs That may be worth looking into.

[Taros]

As soon as you convert your mesh into voxels you will loose all UVs. Only the realtime cloth template keeps its UVs.

Do you know this?

 

I am asking me, why are you converting the nice cloth mesh with UVs into a voxel model?

 

Sorry. But I don't understand your problem. Could you describe it better, please?

[Tony Nemo]

I didn't give a thought to UVs as they were created automatically with Autopo and, no, I was not aware that the cloth template kept it's UVs as I would usually want to edit it with something like the cut off tool, etc.

 

I now have a plane imported into the Retopo room and I have positioned it for simulation but there is no Cloth tool in the Retopo room and when I go to Sculpt, the imported obj w/UVs is nowhere. On my side, it looks easiest to go with the default plane and edit it when the simulation is done,

 

My problem arose when I tried to use a plane of my own (similar to the one parked in the Retopo room) and after simulation , I discovered that the draped object was hollow and covered the underside of the branches like it had 'simulated' right through the branches that were supposed to stop it.