[Gandalf]

I understand how to make clothing for a high-poly char, and there are some tutorials on the subject, but what would be your suggestion to makinga cloak or other flowing garment (think Deus Ex dude)?

I don't nessesarily need it to animate, but I want to be able to pose the character, and either have the clock move into a sesible position, or make me able to move it easily.


Any tips for a beginner?

[Jock McxSporran]

A cloak is just a rectangular(ish) piece of material. If you don't need to animate it then I think Bezier patches would give you the most control over the shape and folds, and would probably be easier to pose than a mesh object.

[Gandalf]

But that would mean it would be a hell of a lot of work when I wanted to change the characters poses, because I'd have to screw with the patch every time.

Maybe I do want something animateable so that it moves properly when I pose the character.

[Jock McxSporran]

In that case you're looking for something like Simcloth, or Clothreyes (among others). They've got built-in collision detection and soft-body dynamics, but they can take a while to calculate.

I can't give you any URLs 'cos I never use them personally. I know that all the Reyes-inforganica R3 plugins are free now though, and there are a couple of other free plugs/ scripts.

If you want to pay for one have a look at www.digimation.com and see if they've got anything, if not have a search for "stitch" or "clothreyes".

[Taoizm]

Sim cloth is available from www.chaogroup.com, and you can get any of the Reyes plugins at: http://www.reyes-infografica.com. (These are both MAX specefic plugins)

I've used both, and depending on the complexity of the cape mesh you may spend more time waiting for the PC figuring out the collsion than pulling a few bezier curves.

I'd recommend looking at doing the cape with surface tools. (AKA patches.)

[Darklighter]

or just try it with the Flex modifier, check up on it in the help file

[NukleoN]

Cloth?

As for a Plugin, try Stich, Havok or SimCloth.

To do it any other way, try using SubDivision Modeling with Meshsmooth and morph targets (or not) depending on what ye want. You could try a loft as well, where the loft is controlled by a spline and animated the same way.

[Jock McxSporran]

I think the basic jist is that there is absolutely no easy/ quick/ lazy way to do it

[TimOPod]

well heres two ideas
try ether
a ffd box (latice in maya) then you can just set the shape via pulling a few points.

or just bone the dang thing (thats not dirty ringh). Mayb be a little funky at first, but you could animat it and stuff.

just some seggestions

oh, and discreet just released their own dynamics poackaghe with cloth and all the goodies in it, i dunno boot proce, but it looked cool.

www.duskdevil.com