Can't Get Apex Cloth to Import Properly

When I try and import my character with cloth sim enabled I get completely broken results. I am using Maya 2016 with the latest PhysX plugin (3.4) from Nvidia. I have tried freezing transforms, deleting history, changing hierarchy, and everything else I could think of, but I still get a broken result. I am including a picture of the simulation running in Maya (where it is fine), and then the result when I import it to the engine. This character is using the ART rigging toolkit.

I am not using rigid bodies or anything at this point to try and narrow down the problem.

Any help would be hugely appreciated since I have been banging my head on this for days now.

Hey rujuro,

This is a known and reported issue, and should be fixed with the 4.14.2 hotfix release, planned to be released sometime this week.

UE-40007

Some of the users reporting issues were actually using an unsupported workflow, so be sure you are skinning and adding the Apex Cloth correctly. We now use Mesh-To-Mesh skinning approach for clothing. This solved a number of issues we were having with the render data coming through from APEX. And is required for the clothing system work we’re currently undertaking and hopefully useful for expansion of deformers in the future. The issue here is that the user seems to be developing their clothing separate to their character mesh which is not the expected workflow, as we need the correct geo to be in the character mesh for this to work.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you,

Thanks for replying Andrew. I looked at the build notes, and I don’t see a fix for this issue in the 4.14.2 hotfix, did I miss it? I also see the bug you linked is marked as WNF.

As far as I know I am using a supported workflow. I import the character mesh as an FBX, I assign cloth to the main “robe” mesh on the character then paint the weights to allow for movement. Then I export the APX file and assign it to the corresponding material ID in unreal. Is some part of that incorrect?

This is all in Maya 2016 using the 3.4 plugin for physX.

The other issue this ticket relates to (rotated clothing) is due to an unfortunate back-compat issue with the new PhysX 3.4 upgrade in 4.14.

All of the bone bind poses and bone actor transforms have their upper 3x3 (the orientation components) transposed in their transform matrices which causes the rotation. The solution for this is to use the ClothingTool or DCC plugins that match this version (the 3.4 versions) as they will not exhibit this problem. The updated ClothingTool and DCC plugins should now be available from Nvidia.

I would check to make sure you have the most up to date ClothingTool or DCC plugin from the Nvidia website.

Would you be willing to share with me your assets you are experiencing issues with so I can take a look on my end?

Thank you,

Definitely Andrew, happy to send them your way. Let me know how to make them available to you.

As far as I know I have the latest tool for Maya, as I downloaded it just a week ago, it is the 3.4 plugin for Maya, which seems to be the latest?

You can send me a message on the forums with a link to an external drive like Google Drive or DropBoxx where I can download the project/assets in question.

My Forum name is the same as the one on here @Andrew

Yeah, if you have the latest then we can assume you are experiencing a new and unique issue.

Thanks,

Thanks Andrew, I sent the link, hope that illuminates the problem!

Hi everyone!

I’m having the same issue with strangely rotated parts of the cloth after I import the apx file .

I’m using the maya dcc plug in version 3.4.11121.04262
I tried upgrading to the 4.0 plug-in but the exported apx files with that version don’t seem to import right in the engine.
I also made sure to reskin the cloth mesh to have no more than 4 influences per vertex and validated the physx scene to be sure.

Hey guys,

I did some more digging and what you are seeing is expected as we changed how we handle Apex files in Unreal. Take a look at the posts found below which go into more detail.

This is just the current and new implementation, and if it breaking some of your pre-existing models with cloth, I suggest either using the newly supported workflow or staying on the engine version where it is currently working for you.

Let me know if you have further questions.

Thank you,

Where do we find documentation on the new workflow (specifically for 3ds max)? The only info I have is an old youtube video that was showing us how to import cloth for UE4.0.2

The updated ClothingTool and DCC plugins should now be available from Nvidia. I do not know if there is a workflow that has changed regarding exporting from 3ds Max to Unreal Engine.

Are you possibly talking about the cloth vertex paint tool, or are you strictly talking about the workflow of exporting Apex files from Max into Unreal?