Use Soft Body to Create a Cloth Simulation

This workflow demonstrates a simple cloth simulation using a soft body plane and an anchor constraint.

1. In a new Maya scene, set the Maya Time Slider duration to 200 frames and ensure it is set to playback at frame 1.
2. Create a polygon plane by selecting Create > Polygon Primitives > Plane > . Set the Width and Height to 5 and the Width divisions and Height divisions to 20. Click Create.
   
3. Position the plane by opening the Channel Box and setting its Translate values to:
   • X: 2.5
   • Y: 0.0
   • Z: 2.5
   One of the four corners of the plane should now be at the origin.
   
4. Convert the plane to a soft body by selecting it and selecting Bullet > Create Soft Body. The plane is now a soft body object.
5. Select Create > Locator to create a Locator at the origin at the corner of the plane.
   
6. Right-click the mesh and select Vertex from the menu that appears.
7. Shift-select the mesh vertex at the origin (at the corner of the plane) and the locator and select Bullet > Create Soft Body Anchor. This attaches the selected vertex to the locator.

   Play back the simulation. The cloth falls due to gravity but hangs on to the locator like a constrained cloth.

   

8. Next, to see how you can have Bullet objects interact, create a polygon sphere by selecting Create > Polygon Primitives > Sphere. Set the Radius to 1.00 and the Axis and Height divisions to 20. Click Create.
9. In the Channel box, position the sphere by setting its Translate values to:
   • X: 2.0
   • Y: -2.0
   • Z: 3.0
   The Sphere is now underneath the plane.
   
10. Include the sphere in the solve by selecting it and selecting Bullet > Create Passive Rigid Body. Set Collider Shape Type to Sphere.
11. Play back the simulation. The cloth drapes over the sphere because you have set it as a passive rigid body which includes it in the solve.
    
12. Make sure the cloth has enough resolution (UVs), and activate Generate Bend constraint and Self-Collision in the BulletSoftBodyShape setting in the Attribute Editor. Ensure that you do not set the BulletSoftBodyShape Soft Body Properties Bend Resistance settings in the Attribute Editor too high and that the Linear Stiffness is low.
    NoteYou can improve the solve behavior by setting the solver's internal frame rate to 120 Hz.

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