Turn only part of a cloth model back to normal?

Support Particles and Physics Simulations
#1

Okay, very simply, I need to turn part of a cloth object back into a regular object. Only part. As in, some its faces, edges, and vertices need to completely stop using cloth physics (or any physics really), but the rest of the model needs to keep on being cloth. And the parts of the cloth model that I turn back into regular non-cloth parts need to stay attached to the rest of the model.

I’ve done a bit of research on cloth pinning, but I’ve only seen how to pin vertices so far and that’s not enough. I need to turn off cloth modeling for select parts, including faces and edges and vertices, of a cloth model.

This should be really easy, though I’m not finding any guides on how to do it yet. How do I do it?

#2

Can you show us an example of what you want ?

#3

Edit: If it sounds like I’m being snippy or rude, I wasn’t meaning to be. I’m just horribly confused why I can’t find something so simple.

Um, I’m not sure how much clearer I could be, and I don’t like showing my projects before they’re done. But I’ll try to give a very simple example.

  1. I start with the basic cube.
  2. I select the cube
  3. I go to the physics tab
  4. I press the cloth button, which turns the whole cube into cloth
  5. I select the edges, vertices, and faces I don’t want to be cloth anymore (for this example, the top face and its edges)
  6. I find the button that turns the cloth simulation for selected edges and faces off and press it
    This would result in 5 sides of the cube being cloth and the top side not being cloth. And since all I did was turn the physics for the top face and its edges off (and didn’t remove it from the cube) the remaining cloth part of the cube is now hanging from the top face and not falling into the void.
#4

Step 5 is done using pinning controlled by a vertex group which has weight values assigned to it.
Step 6 doesn’t exist

Attachments

pin.blend (1.91 MB)

#5

That’s a shame. Though it does explain why all the guides for making 3D clothes I’ve seen do what they do.

I’d really rather not get into weight values so soon though. How about, instead of turning the original object into cloth, I tried this:

  1. Duplicate the original model, making sure the duplicate is exactly where the original is
  2. Remove the faces I don’t want to be cloth from the duplicate
  3. Make the faces of the original that have twins still remaining in the duplicate invisible (remove them, hide them, make them invisible, whatever works best)
  4. Turn the duplicate into cloth
  5. Pin the vertices of the faces I removed from the duplicate to the corresponding vertices of the original

It’s a bit more involved, but I think it’s still within the realm of Blender’s features. If I end up doing it a lot, I could maybe write some python add-on or something to speed it up a bit. If it’s doable. Is it doable?

#6

It’s VERY easy to create vertex groups with a value of 1 - I only used the weight paint function as a demonstration of possibilities. Perhaps if you were to embrace the tools that exist within Blender this wouldn’t be such an issue

Here’s a sample Blend to dissect that uses Pinning of vertex groups, Bone Parenting, and collisions to demonstrate how one gets an animated character to drive a cloth simulation.

Attachments

dress_test.blend (254 KB)

#7

That “button” you are looking for is the pinning checkbox, used in conjunction with a vertex group. Learn how make a vertex group, they are used ALL the time, and it’s an insanely powerful tool for your workflow and one that has no replacement.