I’m fairly new to Unreal in general, i’m wanting to make some physics curtains that can be effected by wind ect but i don’t know where to begin, is this something i can create in 3ds and import straight in? or do i need nvidia apex lab?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks.
You need nvidia apex to create cloth assets -> ?v=Vp-2owf695Q
- Create your skeletal mesh
- create the apex part
- impor the mesh
- in the skeletal mesh editor you can import the cloth asset
Hi,
I used your way of importing apex part, but once in UE4, there is no collision or even cloth simulation. I see the cloth in without any problem.
Should I turn on anything in UE4 to activate the cloth? If I check Simulate Physics, the Physic asset take over but the cloth sim doesn’t happen either.
Thanks.
In the skeletal mesh details panel make sure you have selected the clothing asset.
Here is what I was playing with just yesterday 
://i60.tinypic/2lagfud.jpg
APEX data is loaded into a skeletal mesh and can be associated with a particular section / material. Once associated, the original section’s triangles are hidden and the render data from the APEX file is used instead. You can reimport the FBX and the APEX data will remain. You can also reimport the APEX data at any time. Selecting “None” in the material’s Clothing combo box or removing the APEX asset from the mesh will recover the original FBX vertex data for the section. With multiple submeshes in one APEX file, it’s possible to have multiple sections simulated as a single piece of clothing (eg a jacket with a metal button material and leather material).
- Import an FBX file for your skeletal mesh and open it up in Persona.
- Choose “Add APEX clothing file…”
Select an APEX clothing asset file that corresponds to your skeletal mesh. It can contain multiple submeshes.
Rename the Asset Name to something sensible if you like.
- Notice Clothing combo boxes have appeared in the Materials section. Selecting a clothing asset (and submesh, if the asset contains multiple submeshes) will replace that section with the APEX clothing asset’s vertex data and associate it with the simulation mesh.
- There are a few visualization options available in the “Show” menu in the Persona viewport. These options only appear when cloth sections are mapped
- If a skeletal mesh has LODs and the Apex Clothing asset also has LODs, “Enable Clothing LOD” check box will appear below Clothing combo box.
Can someone confirm if this functionality still works? I have had no success trying to do this. I never get the option to add the clothing file once the mesh has been imported.
cheers - Aten
Make sure that in your modeling software you’ve applied a base material and not left the default material on the mesh. When I first started using Cloth this was a hang-up for me that was not mentioned in any video I used to learn from.
After applying the material and importing you’ll see the option to apply a new material and then add the clothing file to that material.
If you have any questions feel free to ask and I’ll help. 
If using 3ds have a look at garment maker. The resulting topology is better than quads and you can use less geometry with far less clipping.
I’m Using Maya and When ever i try assigning a cloth asset, It Crashes instantly. I wont compile the shaders for it.
Is it possible to use this for non-skeletal meshes? I wanted to implement this for an ocean-art-style, like in this video at 1:22+ ?v=s7L2PVdrb_8
Or isn’t nvidia apex the right tool to use for this?
Cloth for the ocean? that sounds weird… I like it 
You need a skeletal mesh though.
Just skin your mesh to one bone… that’s all you need.
Bringing up this topic with a question:
How to set up the bone for the cloth and what is its role?
So is it enough if the whole mesh (static+cloth part) has a single bone and everything is skinned to that one?
Should there be a root bone and an extra bone for the cloth?
what if I havelong pole with two flags at different positions. should I have different bones for the cloth parts or just one is enough?