topic Re: nCloth and Nparticles in Maya Dynamics Forum

nCloth and Nparticles

Brandon_Curless — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 16:48:59 GMT

Hello, I am trying to create a simulation of falling leaves. I can apply nCloth to a poly plane, adjust the settings,

and get a desired result, but I would like to use a particle system like nParticles to generate the poly plane(leaves).

Whenever I instance an nCloth object in nParticles, Maya crashes so I am thinking this is not possible. Any

workaround getting objects to act like nCloth being generated by nParticles? Thanks for any help

James B.

Re: nCloth and Nparticles

DyllanCFX — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 01:35:16 GMT

Hi @Brandon_Curless ,

Maybe you can try convert those particle leaves into mesh, export as alembic, and then bring back into the scene, and turn them into nCloth?

Re: nCloth and Nparticles

Brandon_Curless — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 04:08:28 GMT

Hi DyllanCFX, thanks for your reply and answer. I am thinking that may compound animation? The alembic animation would move the leaves but then also the nCloth solver would be animating the leaves as well? I'll give it a try though and see if it works.

James B.

Re: nCloth and Nparticles

DyllanCFX — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 15:59:22 GMT

Hi @Brandon_Curless

If you use Input Mesh Attract, you can determine whether the leaves following alembic animation, all nCloth sim, or somewhere in between. By default, nCloth will take over alembic animation but leverage the placement on initial frame.

I'm not exactly sure the context of this situation, but I would think either nParticle (wide shot) or nCloth (close up) should do the trick. Using both may not be necessary.

Here's an article on falling leaves in case you haven't seen it already.

https://area.autodesk.com/blogs/the-maya-blog/falling_leaves_with_ncloth_and_paint_effects/

Re: nCloth and Nparticles

Brandon_Curless — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 17:13:14 GMT

It has taken me awhile to get back to this issue. I am able convert nparticles(I just used spheres) to polygons, export as alembic, import alembic back into scene, create the nCloth, but then the nCloth polygons don't act like nCloth. It creates a nCloth node in the outliner, but polygons do not respond/react to gravity, passive collider, etc. I tried changing the 'input mesh attract' slider on nClothShape node, but nothing changes. Hmm, I'll keep experimenting.

James B.