Apex Cloth Ship Sails

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hello all!

I am trying to make a ship model to use in UE and i’ve run into a problem. I am trying to make a sail unfolding animation to use on an assignment i have but i can’t figure out how to do it with APEX clothing. I have managed to make it work as i want using the 3ds cloth modifier as seen here

Before.JPG

After.JPG

But doing it with APEX is a whole other story. All of the tutorials i have seen so far are about animating a lightly folded cloth but no matter how much i search there is nothing that shows a way to take the plane in the first picture and let it unfold to the state of the second pic using apex or at least to get the same results using APEX from begin to end.

If anyone has a tutorial or is willing to give me some instructions i would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance for your time!!

Edit: I was wondering… since i don’t want the sail to have some kind of interactivity with the world but just be the difference between an idle and moving state, would it be possible to simply export the mesh’s animation and import it to unreal as is?

2

Did you figure out how to do this? I’m interested as well

3

One idea is to freeze the mesh in the state of the folded sail. This would be the start position. Then let dynamic gravity and forces unfurl it. Another solution if you don’t need it dynamic is to use blend shapes.

4

Did you manage to crank it out mate? Would be interesting to see the result.

5

I’d use blend shapes for the transition and have it be swapped out for Apex Cloth once it’s unfolded. You could also have 2 or 3 blend shapes of it folded up if you want to add some fake wind or some natural subtle movement .