Generate Force Fields with nCloth
 
 
 

You can generate a Force Field from your nCloth that either pushes nParticle objects or other nCloth objects away from your nCloth, or pulls nParticle objects or other nCloth toward your nCloth. Force fields are defined by Field Magnitude, as well as Field Distance, which is the distance from the field generating object that the field is active. Positive Field Magnitude values produce a force that push Nucleus objects away, while negative Field Magnitude values generate a force that pulls objects toward your nCloth object. The motion your nCloth is not affected by the force field it generates.

You can generate a Force Field from the surface normals as well as from the positive and negative normals of your nCloth object.

Force fields have a Field Scale ramp that you can use to control how Field Magnitude distributes along the area defined by Field Distance.

To generate a force field for nCloth

  1. Select the nCloth object you want to generate force fields.
  2. In the Attribute Editor, select the nCloth object’s nClothShape tab.
  3. In the Field Generation section, turn on force fields by selecting one of the following from the Force Field list:
  4. Adjust Field Magnitude to increase or decrease the force field strength.

    Positive Field Magnitude values push Nucleus objects away from the nCloth, while negative Field Magnitude values pull other Nucleus objects toward the nCloth.

  5. Adjust Field Distance to specify the distance from the nCloth that the force field is active.

    Nucleus objects located in the area specified by the Field Distance are affected by the force field.

Controlling force fields using the Field Scale ramp

You can use the Field Scale ramp to provide additional control of your nCloth’s Force Fields settings. For example, you can define a Field Scale curve that varies Field Magnitude along the area defined by Field Distance.

To control a Force Field using the Field Scale ramp

  1. Select the nCloth object you want to generate force fields, and in the Attribute Editor, adjust the object’s Force Field attributes.

    See To generate a force field for an nParticle object.

  2. In the Field Scale section of the Attribute Editor, set the ramp options by doing the following:
    • Create the Field Scale curve by setting values for Selected Position and Selected Value.

      You can set Selected Values to negative values. With negative Selected Values, nCloth objects generates a force field which repels objects at a specific Field Distance while simultaneously attracting objects at other Field Distance values. For more information, see Field Scale.

    • Set an Interpolation method to determine how Field Magnitude blends between positions on the ramp. See Interpolation.