Tutorial: Folded Blanket – 3ds Max Cloth

Hello again. Today I’ll be showing you how to make a folded blanket - one you might lay over the end of a bed. I think every hotel suite render I’ve ever done has had a folding something or other at the end of the bed.  This blanket is folded in thirds, like a business letter.

Fig. 1: Create a spline

When dealing with a cloth object that is folded, UV Mapping can be a problem. For my first attempt, I used a smooth line and the Extrude modifier. This worked okay until I noticed that I had to use Box mapping to get a decent look, and there were still issues. I just so happens that today, over at CGArchitect someone had a similar issue with UV Mapping on curving objects. Chad Warner suggested he use a Loft object, so I decided to try it too.

In Figure 1, I’ve created a Line object with the Smooth options. This is the Shape object

Fig: 3 Loft settings

Fig. 2: Loft shape and path

for my loft. Since I often have trouble with scale in 3ds Max, I created a simple planar object of the approximate size I would want for the profile of my folded blanket. I made it 8″Hx18″W and gave it 8 width segments so I’d have a line for every inch. I need all the help I can get! Next, I created a Line object with the Corner options and made it 96″ long, the width of my blanket.  See Figure 2. Of course, you can create a smooth line and make it curvey if you want.  

Figure 3 shows the Loft settings. I was able to get much better results with the Loft mapping controls, and you will see when we do the cloth simulation that your texture will not get stretched or distorted. You should set the Loft mapping tiling according to what looks best for your particular texture map.

Fig. 5: Simulate Local

Fig. 4: Cloth properties

It’s time to add the Cloth modifier. I generally use the Cotton preset for cloth because it simulates very fast.  I have changed a few of the presets, such as thickness and air resistance just to see what affect they will have. You can play with those settings to see what you like best. The Bed is set as a collision object with the default settings. See Figure 4 for the Object Properties and Simulation Parameters – I’ve checked Self Collision and set it to 1, and enabled Check Intersections.

Tweaking with Live Drag!

Fig. 7: Shell and Turbosmooth

We are now ready to start the cloth simulation. In this case, we aren’t animating anything. We’re just allowing the blanket object to drop down and drape onto the bed object. So use the Simulate Local function (Figure 5) and stop it when you like the results. Of course, a cloth simulation would not be complete without Live Drag! Yes, the function has an exlamation point on the button.  I like putting it in just so that you will think I’m really excited about it. You will find Live Drag! in the Faces sub-object level of the Cloth modifier. With Live Drag! you can select faces of your cloth object and drag them around (Figure 6).

To give the blanket weight and smoothness, I’ve added a Shell modifier (Outer 0.5), 1 iteration of Turbosmooth. I’ve also added an Edit Poly modifier to create some seams to

Fig. 8: Seams with Edit Poly modifier

indicate the hem of the blanket. In Edge mode of the Edit Poly modifier, select an edge along the line where you want a seam, then click Loop. The entire connected edge will be selected. Figure 8 shows how I’ve used Extrude and Chamfer from the edit edges rollout. You may want larger or smaller values, or choose to do no seams at all. It depends on the level of detail you’re going for. I also added one more iteration of Turbosmooth for the final touch.

You can grab the max scene for this tutorial here. You can get the completed blanket in Max format here, and in OBJ format here. Let me know if you have questions or suggestions. I would love to have your feedback.

source: http://surrealstructures.com/blog/2009/10/tutorial-folded-blanket-3ds-max-cloth/