9

Cloth Overview 577
at edges between triangles, so the regularity
or irregularity of the mesh also dictates the
resulting deformation. For example, a plane all of
whosetrianglehypotenuseedgesarealignedwill
result in a cloth with folds aligned along those
edges. Garment Maker creates meshes with an
irregular layout (but with fairly equal-sized and
close-to-equilateral triangles) that avoids this
folding bias. However, this can also result in
rendering artifacts with low-resolution cloths, so
it is advisable to apply the HSDS modifier after
Cloth on garments created with Garment Maker
and subdivide all the triangles once.
Note: MeshSmooth does not give goo d results with
Garment Maker meshes.
Left: A low-density shirt.
Right:ThesameshirtwithHSDSapplied,aboveClothinthe
modifier sta ck
Note: There should never be any modifiers that can
alter topology between Gar ment Maker and Cloth.
For example, you can use Unw rap UVW, but not
modifierssuchasEditMesh,MeshSmooth,or
HSDS.
Thetypeofgeometryyouworkwithcanhavea
great impact on how the cloth will react. You’re
probably accustomed to using triangular and
quadri lateral polygons for modeling. Garment
Maker uses a Delaunay mesh subdivision that
promotes non-uniform deformation. When using
quad polygons for cloth simulation be careful of
getting uniform or symmetrical results.
Left: A quad mesh
Right: A Delaunay mesh
ClothMeshDensity
It is important to think about how dense your
meshhastobetoachievetheresultyouwant.
Makingthemeshtoodensewillslowdown
thesystem,whilehavingyourmeshattoolow
resolution might not give you the folds or detail
you want to see.
For example, if you applied a Bend modifier to a
cylinder with only a few height segments, the result
would be angular and unsmooth. On the other
hand, if you created the cylinder with 1,000 heig ht
segments, you’d be wasting resources. The same
is true for Cloth. You must find a balance between
levelofdetailandperformancethatisappropriate
foryourscene.
Low, medium, and high-density meshes and the way they
deform
Notes on the HSDS Modifier
Using the HSDS modifier to add detail to your
model can b e an effective solution that lets you
simulate with a lower resolution mesh, and still get
high-quality results. However, if you choose to use
the H SDS modifier on top of your Cloth garments,
you may want to apply an Edit Mesh modifier
below it to weld the ver tices together along the