Bath shot

[Macca23]

Hi guys, long time since ive posted. Im jsut doing a bath shot, nice and simple and i want a towel hanging over the bath. Im doing it the easy way of using reactor to get a real look. The bath is square with the inside hollowed out but as i have to make the bath a rigid body the cloth doesnt bend over it and go inside it just sits on the top. Any suggestions? Cheers

[Fran]

Have you tried the Cloth modifier (Max 9 and later, I think)? I have better luck with that. What version of Max are you using?

[Macca23]

im using max 9 and yes the towel is a cloth collection.

[Fran]

Don't use Reactor. Just use the Cloth modifier and apply it to your towel plane. Use the Flannel preset (that works pretty well for terrycloth). Add your tub object as a collision object.

[Macca23]

Could you explain how to do it that way? ive only ever used reactor

[Fran]

Apply the Cloth modifier to your planar object that represents the towel. In the Cloth rollout, click Object Properties, and pick the towel from the Objects list. I've attached a screen grab of the dialog. I started out with a flat planar object (I didn't want to reset the simulation). Set the towel the way you want it - Flannel is a good preset for towels. Then pick the tub object from the Objects list and set it as a Collision object in the same object properties window.

 

To keep the towel from slipping to the floor, attach some of the vertices of the towel to the tub using the Group rollout per the attached screen grab. Pick the verts, click Make Group, then click Sim Node and click the tub object. My scene has a cylindar, but you get the idea. Another option is to set the friction for the towel to a higher value, you might want to do both. Cloth can be tricky.

 

Back in the main Cloth rollout for the towel object, go down to Simulation Parameters and enable Self Collision. I set it to 1 and it seems to work well for me. I think for your purposes, you only need to Simulate Local.

 

I happened to have a test render of some cloth sims I did recently for a friend. See attached. Scott Onstott has a great video tutorial on making a curtain that will give you lots of ideas about how to get lots of different effects. Hope this helps.

[Macca23]

Thats brilliant that, thank you so much!!

[Fran]

I just did a folded hanging towel, and didn't need to group any vertices to keep the towel from slipping off the collision object. I did increase the static friction to 2 in the cloth properties for the towel.