Houdini 20.0 Shelf tools

Simple Cloth shelf tool

Configures SOP-based vellum cloth from geometry and collider.

On this page

Overview

This tool lets you pick a piece of geometry and configure it as vellum cloth. Rather than building a DOP network, it uses the SOP-level tools to build a simple network to work with the cloth.

Using Simple Cloth

  1. Select the geometry object to solve as cloth at the SOP level.

  2. Click the Simple Cloth tool on the Simple FX tab.

  3. Select the geometry object to use as a collider, if any. This should be a polygonal object. To collide with volumes or heightfields, use the DOP-based setup.

For specific parameter information, see the Vellum Constraints and Vellum Solver help.

Working with Simple Cloth

  • You can change the Thickness and Mass of the cloth on the Vellum Constraints node. This allows you to set these parameters per piece of cloth.

  • The Drag constraints are useful when animating flags or other objects that are affected by wind.

  • The Pin to Animation parameters on the Vellum Constraints node allow you to directly select points in the viewport to pin using the reselect button.

    Choosing Stopped as the Pin Type sets a stopped attribute to 1 to make the point a hard constraint. This will act like a Permanent constraint that isn’t affected by forces. However, you can restore dynamics if you choose to move the pin later by resetting the stopped attribute to 0. This can be done using a POP Awaken.

    Note

    Choosing Permanent won’t allow you to release the constraint later.

  • Setting a lower Compression Stiffness allows the cloth to collapse and regain its fluidity. This usually has to be increased for higher resolution cloth so that it doesn’t look too much like silk.

Shelf tools

Using the shelf

  • Customize the shelf

    How to change the look of the shelf, change and rearrange its contents, and create your own shelf tools.

Technical