Hello,

I am not sure which is the best area for this cause it's a general question on how you work with 3d assets.

Currently I'm working on a vellum simulation of some soft pillows.
In this case I downloaded for example this model: https://de.3dexport.com/3dmodel-ikea-cushion-nedja-230269.htm [de.3dexport.com]
It looks nice, but there are some degenerative faces in the seams that are not visible from outside. I guess they are the reason the pillow starts rotating like crazy right from the beginning of the simulation.

Are there efficient ways to repair such geometry with Houdini to make it ready for simulations? (I found there's polydoctor but I'm not sure yet if it can solve the problems properly.) Do you know how you can be sure an asset works well before buying? Or would you rather model everything on your own cause you know the requirements and don't want to rely on others?

The topology, at least by judging from available screenshots, looks clean. But it's a subdivisible model, which isn't good for Vellum. You need to process it first. Remesh it to uniform triangles before feeding it to Vellum. Then use Point Deform to drive deformations of the original geometry with the simulated proxy.

freewind
Do you know how you can be sure an asset works well before buying?

You can't. There's always a risk of buying a pig in a poke, unless the asset is well documented (3d viewer, lots of reference images depicting topology) or you know that the source supplies quality assets.

freewind
Or would you rather model everything on your own cause you know the requirements and don't want to rely on others?

Depends on many circumstances, like available time, funds, asset complexity, project type, etc.

Thanks I didn't have the pontdeform way in mind, that's a great solution here.