Cloth as skin ?

#1

How impractical would it be to use the new cloth as skin on a model ?
Leather is skin off of the back of some animal that has been killed, and people create CG leather jackets with no problems all the time.
I know you wouldn’t want to do a major length animation using this technique, but what about for just a ten second one of some characters face talking ?
What kind of problems would you run into ? ( From what I recall, cloth needs preroll and collision objects .) I have never used cloth before … if this explains the dumb question.:wise:

Crazy question perhaps … but is it possible ? It seems like cloth would be good for flabby jowls and arms especially.

( Just curious .)

I know that I have plans to try this technique on my dragons wings … if I ever dust the model off and finish it.

Thanks

#2

It might be possible I suppose… but the overhead is pretty high for that kind of thing. I would consider using bones with dynamic constraints instead, they do a good job with fatty bodies like jowls or arms (and if you wanted you could apply them to a distortion object for even better effect…)

the new cloth is still a bit rough but I think it would be more difficult to use it for skin as you would most likely need a surface (skin) riding over another surface (muscles etc) and any time you might save on surface animation would be lost to modeling and rigging…

-David

#3

I agree with David–the jiggles are easiest to simulate with a dynamic constraint. You don’t even have to assign CPs to the dynamic bone–just create some smartskin for it, that will be additive on top of any other blending and poses (so be subtle…).

Before dynamic constraints there was a neat technique, like you are asking about using the cloth wizard and “suspension CPS” (DinoCarl’s invention) to create a jiggle system for soft bodies. You can still do that, and may get more realistic results, but it is more complicated.

Dynamic bones can have other dynamic bones under them, not only in a kinematic chain, so you can have a breast bone swinging around, with a bunch of smaller jiggle bones being carried with it driving the points on the breast. That would give you a big floppy titty with secondary jiggle in the flesh. Probably the easiest technique :wink:

#4

I’m using the Suspension CP technique to add some jiggle to some of my heavier characters. (Of course, as David mentioned, the future of this technique is very much in doubt with SimCloth.) It’s works well, but I have found that it only works as well as the rig that controls it. In the example that you mentioned, the current cloth system would not likely work well. The new SimCloth might, but that’s still a full software version away unless you want to work in an early beta.

Dynamic Constraints are certainly a good alternative for a little jiggle, but are unlikely going to get what you want from a dragon’s wing. In fact, I’d wager that it’s likely the exact opposite effect you want to achieve. In the 2004 SIGGRAPH tapes, I did a demo for how to rig a pterosaur’s wing, and I plan on having a html version soon. I can try to explain it here and post some files, if you like.

#5

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