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View Full Version : Is n-cloth replacing soft bodies in Maya?

Wes_Brown
12-03-2007, 03:01 PM
(I tried to post this earlier but my browser froze. Sorry if it double posts.)

Hey guys. I've been out of the simulation side of things for awhile due to the fact that I have not needed it in at work or in my personal projects. As I am jumping around the net and looking at Duncan's blog and other resources, it seems to me like N-cloth is being used to do many, many things that only soft-bodies were capable of before. (I have not used n-cloth yet but I am pretty familiar with the old Maya cloth.)

So my question is this: for those that have been using n-cloth for non-clothing related projects, is there a reason to use soft bodies anymore or is n-cloth truly replacing them? I'm sure soft bodies are still valid but in what situations are they more appropriate these days now that n-cloth seems to be capable of doing its own soft-body style dynamics?

Thanks in advance,
Wes
Aikiman
12-03-2007, 08:21 PM
Off the top of my head I would say "yes" nCloth probably does replace softbodies except in some circumstances. For example Im not sure you can turn a curve into nCloth (i havnt checked) but you can with softbodies although hair probably does a better job than softbodies. The main difference though is that softbodies uses the particle system so you could use expressions to influence those particles if you wanted to. I still wouldnt rule out softbodies at this stage its just another method to achieve the results you want.
Wes_Brown
12-03-2007, 11:16 PM
Awesome. Thanks for the info. I'll have to play around with it for sure!

Off the top of my head I would say "yes" nCloth probably does replace softbodies except in some circumstances. For example Im not sure you can turn a curve into nCloth (i havnt checked) but you can with softbodies although hair probably does a better job than softbodies. The main difference though is that softbodies uses the particle system so you could use expressions to influence those particles if you wanted to. I still wouldnt rule out softbodies at this stage its just another method to achieve the results you want.
lafs1984
12-15-2007, 04:20 AM
... For example Im not sure you can turn a curve into nCloth (i havnt checked) ....

well you could always make a curve dynamic and make a geometry out of it (keeping the history) :)
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