Issues modeling a cape

Hi,

I’m working on my first figure model, and have pretty much everything where I want it with one exception: the cape. I created it from a single plane, edited to the rough shape I wanted it in. I’ve been trying to use the cloth modifier, though it seems to ignore collisions at the shoulders near where I pinned it. It also seems like the cloth bounces up in that same area.

My goal is to finish this model as something fully ready for animation, so I want to be able to use the cloth modifier so that it will move and flow on its own. I’ve set the cloth to the ‘leather’ preset, and I’ve tried to minimize the ‘bouncing’ by lowering the ‘Spring’ setting on Damping to 0, but that doesn’t seem to have done anything useful.

I just want this set up so it will drape off the model’s shoulders while stationary (so it’s not moving seemingly of its own free will without any environmental influence) but be able to move about when I finally get to the animation stage of things.

Can anyone offer me some insights as to how I can go about actually getting this to look/behave properly? I’ve spent the better part of the past several hours on this, seemingly to no avail.:confused:

In the cloths physic tab, in cloth collision, you have to add the group of objects you which the cape to collide with. Namelly the dude using the cape, and whatever else you want.

I saw that when I was initially running into this problem, but when I clicked on the Collision objects box, I didn’t have anything to choose from. I tried manually entering the figure’s object name, but still no dice. Is there something I need to do to create a collision group? So far all I’ve done is add a Collision modifier to the figure.

Is there another/better way to create a cape like I described above? This is the final thing before I can call this figure completed… it’s driving me crazy to be so close yet so far! :spin:

Lowering the spring setting is the opposite of what you want to do. Set it at 10 to see the difference. You also have some settings in Cloth Collision, namely repel force and distance (which is what makes the cloth ‘bounce up’ from the shoulders). Try using the ‘cotton’ preset.

Thanks Orinoco, I tried your advice, switched to the ‘cotton’ preset, and upped my spring setting to 10. Unfortunately, the whole bloody thing still seems to have a mind of its own. I’m attaching an image to better illustrate what I’m running into. -And yes, I’m a DC fan. :wink:



The cape still ignores collisions right around the shoulders (you can’t see from the angles I have posted, but part of it is passing through the right shoulder) as well…

This is what I’m hoping to eventually get the cape to look/hang off the model like: http://www.cgselworks.com/Images/Batman_02.jpg

I also want it to be fully able to be animated, though the bigger challenge right now is getting it to look proper. I started out with just a flat plane that I shaped slightly… is there a better way I could/should be doing this?

Thanks for any and all help!

Is your cape mesh properly subdivided? Cloth sim loves squares…

Bingo! No, it’s not. Not nearly enough. Cloth sim not only loves squares, it works much better when the cloth and the collision object have roughly the same density. Start with a grid, and subdivide it a couple times.

That totally worked! Thanks for the help, Orinoco and eppo! You guys definitely saved me a lot of frustration! :slight_smile:

sigh Another day, another problem. I imported my model into a scene to do a quick pose/render. I added a Wind force field object to give the cape some life. However, at frame 2, the cape immediately jumps down to the the original location and goes back to the same scale and rotation it was in when I imported it. I already hit Ctl+A to apply my scale and rotation once I’d finished adjusting it for the screen, and I created my shape keys and even removed/reassigned my pinning points. Yet no matter what I’ve tried, at the 2nd frame, the cape just jumps back to its original position. I’m obviously missing something, but I can’t figure out what…