Cloth in AM

• CLOTH IN AM

  Getting started with learning cloth in Animation:Master

• INTRODUCTION

  Part 2: Defining terms.

• HOW AM CLOTH WORKS

  Part 3: The Cloth Wizard does its magic.

• COLLISION DETECTION

  Part 4: Cloth interacting with other objects.

• CLOTH CONSTRAINTS

  Part 5: Mass to CP / CP to Mass Constraints

• SUSPENSION CPS

  Part 6: Giving control back to the bones.

This is an intermediate/advanced Animation:Master tutorial. It assumes knowledge of basic modeling and animating techniques, including what defines a patch, spline extrusion, what a bone is, associating geometry with bones, and how to rig and animate bones. Almost all the covered techniques apply from the first instantiation of AM Cloth, back in v8.5 and work in the 10.5 series as well (unfortunately, I can not vouch for the 9 series, since I never used that version). There are some differences between the two, and I will highlight them as I go.

Also, this is a lengthy tutorial. That is because I am trying to put forth as exhaustive a treatment of AM’s Cloth technology as I am able, how it works, and how to work with it. It has hitherto remained largely unused by AM users; few have delved into it and fewer still have written anything about it. Because it works so differently from other parts of the program, it necessitates some background in its basic functionality. So, my goal here is less of a tutorial and more of a “Cloth Manual”. I ask that you follow along with my basic examples and their subsequent analysis, so that you can learn how and where to apply the various techniques described here.