How can I get realistic fabric folds in Blender without stiff results?

[SavannahL]

I’ve been trying to get better at creating realistic fabric folds for my character clothing in Blender, but my results always look either too stiff or unnaturally uniform. I’m wondering if my approach to adjusting the cloth simulation’s internal springs is fundamentally wrong.

[MasonJ]

Yeah I’ve struggled with that stiffness too. For me the issue wasn’t dialing in perfect spring values so much as how the garment was set up. I loosened the fit a bit at the hips, added a touch more subdivision so folds can actually form, and just watched how gravity and collisions pull the cloth. A few quick test runs with a simpler base mesh helped me see where the problem started.

[Andrew_L]

On the springs part I did tinker once, but I stopped chasing a perfect tally. I reduced their influence and bumped up damping a notch; the drape softened and natural folds appeared, though you can overdo it and kill bounce. It felt like the material’s memory fighting you unless you’re careful.

[George85]

Do you think the real problem is the pose or the garment's fit? Sometimes I chased the cloth and missed that the starting pose or a too-tight seam was freezing folds in odd places. It is hard to tell what is the actor and what is the wardrobe.

[JoshuaIG]

I drifted between ideas, like trying a wrinkle map, pin placements, and baking the sim at a higher resolution. Then I would revert to a quick bake and check if the cloth settles into natural lines. It felt messy and not repeatable, but every little tweak taught me something, even if the final look was still inconsistent.