Lynda – Understanding Maya nCloth

Lynda – Understanding Maya nCloth
English | Size: 899 MB
Category: Lynda.com

Take an in-depth look at nCloth, the Maya toolkit for simulating high-resolution mesh cloth for 3D characters and animations. Author Aaron F. Ross explains the roles played by the various “actors” in an nCloth simulation, including the nucleus solver, nCloth objects, passive colliders, and nConstraints. The course begins with basic simulations such as flags and ropes, then progresses to building a simple garment, until finally integrating animation and special effects like falling leaves and tearing cloth. Aaron also covers performance optimization techniques such as nCloth and nucleus solver settings, proxy objects, collision layers, the Wrap deformer, and more.

Topics include:

Understanding the nucleus solver
Adopting a scale convention
Adjusting nCloth and nRigid attributes
Creating and animating nConstraints
Editing nConstraint membership and influence
Smoothing nCloth with subdivision surfaces
Storing and manipulating simulation data with nCache
Improving simulation quality and efficiency
Dressing an animated character
Painting dynamic attributes such as Stickiness
Simulating many objects such as falling leaves