Cloth and parenting

Support Modeling
1

Hello.

I would need some explanation to the following:

  1. Is there a way to convert an animated cloth mesh (the specific position it is in at a certain frame) to a normal mesh that can be further modified? Make duplicates real either did nothing or I didn’t use it right(choose and Shift-D).

When I enter edit mode of animated cloth the editable mesh doesn’t keep its position; is it normal for it to jump away from its “object” position? Furthermore, trying to move it by hand only moves its origin. Trying to edit the mesh at any point makes it go bananas outside of edit mode (verts everywhere).

Though more importantly, cloth collision with surfaces:

http://i58.tinypic.com/314v60i.png
314v60i.png1599×1066

On the upper image you should be able to see the cord doesn’t touch the table. This happens every time and I don’t know how to correct it.

  1. When I select an object and choose “clear parent” from the Alt-P menu the object changes location severely. Is there a way to prevent the object from doing that?
2
  1. Yes and no. If you want to keep the deformed mesh that the simulation did at a certain frame, you can apply the cloth modifier. If you want to edit it to have different geometry in the simulation from that frame onwards then no, can’t do that. Cloth simulation simulates the original geometry and changes to it makes the simulation cache invalid.

Perhaps the issue you’re having is because unapplied object scale (ctrl+A -> scale in object mode to apply) or maybe collision margins are too high.

  1. Clear and keep tranformation from the same menu.
3

if you want to edit a cloth after baking, then add a deform mesh to the object. Thats what ive done to all my cloth animations to correct flaws.