interactive cloth playback
 

I am wondering what kind of set up you might need to be able to run cloth simulations in real time. I have a character set up that is a bit like doc oc and with a cloth cape that is reacting with him.

My comp set up consists of:
quad core @2.4ghz
8gb of ddr2 ram
Ati HD5770
and vista ultimate 64bit

I assume cloth simulations are processor dependent in which case should I be looking to build a comp with intels i7 processor.
If someone could point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Leon

omg i dont think ive ever seen a cloth sim in real time ..not sure its even possible, i might be just taking rubbish though ..hehe

You may well be right jsprogg. Just annoying having to make changes and create playbalsts each time that take about 5-10 mins. Be so much easier if you could play back close to real time to get things spot on.

I think even with the i7 it would be slow. Cloth simulation is a very computationally expensive process. That's why on most productions, we just fake it.

doesnt the Syflex program they used for the cloth in LOTR actually offer pretty decent live playback on 'normal' computers?

G-man

I'm not sure about Syflex, but I've heard it is faster under certain circumstances.

If maya's is slow, trying bringing the subsampling down in the attribute editor.

r u wanting to actually sim in real time or just watch it if you just want to watch it cache the sim and you will be able to watch it in real time

in a ideal work I would like to be able to watch the simulation in real time as it would enable me to make alterations and view instant results. Thanks for your comments and thoughts guys it is much appreciated. I am going to try running it on a friends core i7 to see how much improvement gain there is this evening.

Thanks again,

Leon

You shouldbe able to tweek ncloth to lower the simulation substeps in the neucleus node (just adds edges to a circle) and/or lower the poly cound on the cloth object, granted that its not going to be full quality and the simulation mught change slightly when the res is increased.