Attaching another object to cloth simulation

Question

For my project, I have a basic plane with Cloth Modifier applied to it that falls and collides with an object, draping over it in a sheet ghost-like way

What I would like to add is a big over-sized tag sticking out of it like this, so that when it falls, the tag stays stiff and faces the front.

• I've tried to parent the tag (as its own object) to the cloth simulation but it didn't apply to simulation, either not following the geometry of the cloth and going inside it or only attaching or only to a single vertex.

• I've tried extruding out the tag from the fabric, but it folds over like the rest of the cloth.

Is it possible to "paint" stiffness/weight to certain parts of a cloth?

I'm pretty new to Blender and not too familiar with cloth physics so I've done a lot of Google searches, looked for YouTube Tutorials, documentation, etc. but couldn't find something similar and the program is changing all the time (I think I wanted something like this post form 5 years ago?). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You can define a Vertex Group and assign the tag mesh to it. This Vertex Group ("Stiff" in the example) you can add under Property Weights of the cloth sim and experiment with the values.

All in all, I got a good simulated shape but it's not suitable for animation because the collision detection is inaccurate and the tag appears sometimes on the other side or gets overlapped (clipping).

I removed a few edges of the tag, it's more low-poly than the rest. But I am not sure if that is a good idea (collision). You can also try and add some of the verts around the tag to the Stiff group for a better result.

The simulation is somewhat sensitive to the entered values. Small changes to Self Collision for example can have larger effects. If the value for Self Collision in my example is increased from 0.001m to 0.005m then the plane wraps around the tag and goes crazy.

Good luck ;-)