Hello there! I'm a CFX artist who's pretty new to Houdini and am trying to run a cloth sim on a character's skin while simultaneously simulating their outfit to minimize inner-penetrations, but am having a bit of trouble finding any resources on the matter. Thank you for your time and have a nice day!

Moin, unknown user,

with so many ways of simulating things (not only) in Houdini, your question is quite vague. You can start your journey by reading white papers about “soft body simulations”, study documentation on various “physics simulation” out there, read some medical papers on skin … or you can watch some of the large number of Houdini tutorials. In order to really help you, it might be a good idea to show what you are doing, how far you have gotten on your own and where you are struggling.

Based on what you are describing, my suggestion is to split your simulation into two steps: Either simulate one layer (skin first, clothes second) after another. Or, different approach (depending o your actual setup), only simulate those parts of the skin that are not covered by cloth and use the skin “under cloth” as mere static/animated collision geometry for the cloth simulation.

It really depends on what you are after and whether you are doing isolated shots for cinematic reason or want to bake geometry for game-exports etc.


Marc