I’ve been searching for tutorials that teach how to make and animate clothing. I know blender has softbody which can be used with deflection fields but then all I’ve got is a cloth that moves through the air. I want to know how to make the clothes I model stay on the character and still move as if it was clothing.
If any one knows how or knows of a tutorial that can help (even if it isn’t blender) anything at all would be helpful!
This is something thats been discussed a lot and I think there be actual dynamic clothing in blender in the future. For now you won’t get much out of soft bodies for clothing. However, you can weight paint and group verts then enter the group name in the soft body options, and some how rig it to your character. But this is very difficult even for someone who knows soft bodies well.
if you read this thread
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=97413
you will see the possibilities and limitations with soft bodies.
Is there a way to convert cloth animation or softbody into shape key animation? For exporting to other file formats with vertex animations etc…
Not as of now, so far as I know, but another guy is working on that. Janne Karhu, of the hair system fame, is working on extending his particle bake editor to include softbodies and all kinds of other stuff.
Oh that looks gooooood… I like the fake flag on the boat. Actually thought it was jus tthe webmaster showing holiday photos 
thanks alot all! I’ll be sure to use these links alot!
Yes,
I downloaded the build and can add a cloth modifier to a mesh, but that is the extent of it.
There is no information on how to use their cloth system.
Just a bunch of movies going “looky looky”. With no explanation on how to achieve the effect.
see Soft Bodies in wiki user manual under Effects and Physical Simulation
Papa Smurf,
Have you visited www.wxtools.com?
They have a custom build of Blender with a Cloth modifier built into the system.
The wiki does not cover their custom build.
Maybe their system works with soft bodies, but with zero documentation, I’m not sure how to proceed?
I create a plane and add a cloth modifier to it. The modifier has no parameters at all?
I am trying to make a flag flapping in the wind attached to a pole. A classic animation, indeed. I assumed blender could do this but it looks like Blender is still catching up with Maya and 3DSMax and XSI and Cinema4D and lightwave when it comes to cloth.
Atom: Firstly, the cloth is still a work in progress. Secondly, the Windows build
in wxtools.com is really old (September). Then again, I’m assuming you are using that old build, and didn’t compile the latest SVN. Genscher is still coding and is
posting his work directly into SVN (from what I heard).
As far as I know, the cloth modifier should work for clothes when we all figure out
what to do to make it work.
The flag is rock simple to do; just follow the wiki, and anchor the side against the pole. If Wxtools is just compiling Blender, then the wiki should cover it…if you post a screenshot of the panels you have questions on, I can point u to the wiki section…
if you search clothes in the forum, there was a guy who got skirts and shirts looking really nice and non-intersecting to the base mesh. I just dont have the patience, but the trick is in tuning the springs and collision distances to just the right values.