NCloth

NCloth is the best way in Maya to simulate cloth such as flags, dresses, clothes, and banners. In this tutorial I'll be teaching you how to make a simple flag blowing in the wind in NCloth.

Step one - Download the model Flag and save it.

Step two - Open Maya and open the scene.

Step three - Set your menu set to NCloth at the top of your screen .

Step four - Select the flag then go to nCloth>create nCloth.

Step five - Right mouse button and hold over the flag object. Wait until the menu comes up. Still holding, drag your mouse across to verticies, then release. This'll take you to vertex mode.

Step six - select the vertices's along the edge of the flag post.

Step seven - with the vertices's selected, go to nConstraint>transform. This'll hold these vertices's there and prevent the flag from falling down the flag post.

Step eight - If you play the animation now the flag would just fall because there's no wind. To fix this, right click and hold again, and go to object mode. This'll take you back to its object state. Select the model. Go to window>attributes editor. Find the tab nuculous1. Under gravity and wind, set the wind speed to .4. Now when you play the animation the flag can pick up the wind.

Step nine - With the attribute editor still open, find the tab nclothshape1.

Step ten - Roll down until you find the attribute stretch resistance. Set it from 20 to 100. Now set the bend resistance to .6. There you have it - a simple flag simulation using dynamics.