Modeling tattered clothing in Maya 2018

[Anonymous]

So I've been trying to figure out the best way to go about modeling a tattered cloak, I'll attach my rough sketch and what I've got so far trying to model by hand by extruding the edges where the tears occur. The problem I'm having with it is that it just doesn't look right when smoothed, which I could fix with an alpha channel around the edges to fray them a bit but something about it is just off. Could just be my sketch. I tried using a tearable surface in ncloth but it looked too blocky and anything I tried to find on making the tears more random and realistic was out of date and didn't work for 2018.

So TL;DR what's a good way to model torn/ripped clothing without using an alpha channel. (need the tears to fly around with the character)

 

[cavescholar]

Hello, this document on Create and Edit nCloth may help.

"Create nCloth

When you create nCloth objects, be aware of the following:

• You can only create nCloth objects from polygon meshes.
• Higher resolution polygon meshes create nCloth objects with higher quality collisions.
• Do not use polygon meshes with long skinny triangles for nCloth.
• Do not change the topology of nCloth objects while simulating. Changing the topology (modifications to the mesh surface that change vertices) of nCloth objects may result in collision failures. "

[Anonymous]

This is very helpful for nCloth, thank you. Is there anything out there specifically about modeling rips and tears in clothing and how to make them look realistic?

[cavescholar]

Hello again, not that I can find immediately because your project is pretty unique. I say that you got a good start on it because your cloth strands are actually done in quads so it is looking good. I would just keep doing what your doing with the geometry and then try making into cloth. This will simulate the cloth you have made and I think it should come out good. 

Good luck!