PDA

View Full Version : How hard would it be to animate this piece of cloth?

Alpert
08-02-2009, 11:02 PM
hello,

at the moment i'm modeling a "megaman like" character. later on, when the model is finished and rigged, i would like to animate it. the animation will be about 1:20 min to max. 2.00 min long. I think of giving my character a piece of cloth like this:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3064/3033986896_bd1958bcfa.jpg

(Note: The model that the link is directing to, is not mine. i'm referring to the cloth around her waist, it's similar to what I imagine giving my character).

Because I'm new to Character Animation I would like to know if it's easy to animate that loin cloth or if it would double the time I have to spend for animation. If so, I won't add it to my char. I imagine it's not easy because of all the collision moments the loin cloth has with the legs, ground, feet etc. Or is there a special method you could refer me to?
StefanAlbertz
08-04-2009, 05:01 PM
Depending on the software you use this isn´t that difficult. With Maya (unltd) you can use nCloth to simulate that piece of cloth. You´re right about collision but with nCloth this solves pretty fast. To speed up things you can simulate with a low res mesh (maybe, if you´re subdiv modeling, you just use the base mesh) and attach a smooth on top. This way, Maya just checks collisions for the base mesh and produces the smoothed version after simulating. This works most of the time - you also don´t need collision stand ins using nCloth, since you can internally raise the distance between the cloth and the collider (your character) by setting the thickness of the cloth.
hugo.m
08-04-2009, 05:57 PM
In Max, just use Reactor. Much like StefanAlbertz said about Maya, you can do the same in Max.
DanielWray
08-05-2009, 10:54 AM
add a few control bones to the cloth, give it basic animation so you control the major movements with the character animation, then run a cloth sim on it, that way you'll get controlled major movements with the rig and all the smaller/ detailed movements and simulations with the cloth sim.

I'm not sure which software app your using, but you have the above two applications, also blender, which to simulate cloth is just a case of applying a cloth modifier, paiting a wieght group if you want it to be siffer in certain places and/ or to pin the cloth at certain locations and then just pressing bake.
Alpert
08-05-2009, 11:55 AM
thanks to all for your replies.

i am using maya 8.5 and will try with ncloth
CGTalk Moderation
08-05-2009, 11:55 AM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.