Preview

1. Cloth Setup
Step 1
Open Maya.
Step 2
I’ll explain the
character’s cloth simulation using an arm mesh which I have made purposely for
the tutorial. You can find Arm.mb file in the attachment.

Step 3
To make a full sleeve
cloth for the arm, create a cylinder primitive in the viewport and cover the
arm mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 4
With the arm mesh
selected go to Display > Hide > Hide Selection to hide the arm
mesh. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-H to apply the Hide
command.

Step 5
With the cylinder
primitive selected, increase the Subdivisions Height value to 25
to add more segments to the cylinder.

Step 6
Press F11 key to jump in
the face selection mode. Select the cap faces of the cylinder and delete them.
Rename the cylinder mesh as Cloth.

2. Arm Rigging and Skinning
Step 1
Unhide the arm mesh and
hide the cloth mesh.

Step 2
Jump in the Animation
mode. Go to Skeleton > Joint Tool.

Step 3
Draw the bones as shown
in the following image.

Step 4
Select the joint chain
followed by the arm mesh and go to Skin > Bind Skin > Smooth Bind.

Step 5
You can check the
skinning of the arm mesh by rotating the middle joint. You can also animate the
rotation of the arm.

3. Creating Garment Simulation
Step 1
Go to Display >
Show > All to unhide the cloth mesh.

Step 2
Jump in nDynamics mode.
With the cloth mesh selected, go to nMesh > Create nCloth to apply
the cloth modifier.

Step 3
With the arm mesh
selected, go to nMesh > Create Passive Collider.

Step 4
With the cloth selected,
make a right click on it and select the Vertex mode. In the vertex mode,
select the indicated vertices as shown in the following image.

Step 5
With the vertices
selected, press Shift key and select the arm mesh and then go to nConstraint
> Point to Surface. This binds all the selected vertices of the cloth to
the arm mesh.

Step 6
Go to dynamicContraintShape1
attribute tab. In the Connection Density Range roll out, set the Rest
Length Method to Constant and the value of Rest Length to 1.

Step 7
Go to nucleus1 attribute
tab. In the Scale Attributes rollout, set the values of Time Scale
to 0.666 and Space Scale to 0.222.

Step 8
Hit the play button and
you will see the cloth simulation with the movement of the arm.

4. Skirt Simulation
Step 1
To show the skirt
simulation, I have made the lower part of the character body including waist
and legs.

Step 2
Create a cone with the Subdivisions
value of 42 for both Height and Axis parameters as shown
in the following image.

Step 3
Press F11 key to
jump in the face selection mode. Select the bottom cap face and delete it.
Select and delete the upper faces also as shown in the following image. Rename
it as cloth.

Step 4
With the cloth mesh
selected, go to nMesh > Create nCloth to apply the cloth modifier.

Step 5
With the body mesh
selected, go to nMesh > Create Passive Collider.

Step 6
With the cloth selected,
make a right click on it and select the Vertex mode. In the vertex mode,
select the indicated vertices as shown in the following image.

Step 7
With the vertices
selected, press Shift key and select the body mesh and then go to nConstraint
> Point to Surface. This binds all the selected vertices of the cloth to
the body mesh.

Step 8
Go to dynamicContraintShape2
attribute tab. In the Connection Density Range roll out, set the Rest
Length Method to Constant and the value of Rest Length to 0.111.

Step 9
Animate the Rotation
attribute of the body so that the skirt cloth could follow the movement of the
body.

Step 10
Hit the play button and you will see the skirt simulation with the rotation of the body.

Conclusion
nCloth dynamics is a great tool in Maya. In the next part of the tutorial, I'll show how to create rigid body simulation using nCloth.
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