Create an Animated Flag

Many years ago, if you mentioned the word ‘fabric’ to a 3d artist you would have seen visible signs of nervousness. Just the thought of all that moving mesh was enough to make anyone’s stomach churn. But in 2006 the cloth simulator was born, allowing even the most amateur artist to create realistic cloth physics at the press of a button.

Like me! In 2009 I used this very feature to create the final shot in my short film The Ballad of the M4 Carbine. I’ve since received countless emails from people asking me how I did this so I thought I’d finally get around to creating a tutorial ;)

The finished result:

Hear that? That’s raw patriotism right there…

In this tutorial I’ll be walking you through the basics of cloth simulation and how to use it to create an animated waving flag. If you’re a freelancer this type of job is bound to crop up from one time or another, so it’s a good trick to have under your belt.

What creative uses can you think of for the cloth simulator? Leave a comment below :)