TenPix Cloth Brings GPU Simulation to Max

For those who don’t know the tool: TenPix Cloth is Alireza Akhbariarabani’s GPU cloth simulation system for 3ds Max, released by 10pix studio. Its twenty modifiers cover mesh preparation, fabric behaviour, constraints and finishing inside Max’s stack.

Twenty modifiers, one wardrobe department

Tnpix Solver evaluates the simulation on NVIDIA RTX hardware. Objects sharing the same Solver instance form a group and simulate together; copying settings does not establish that relationship. Cache, Post Process and Threads sit above the solver. Settle the group membership before the jacket and shirt begin separate careers.

Tnpix Garment can remesh uneven polygons into more regular triangles at a chosen edge length, retaining UVs. Its alternative OpenVDB mode rebuilds a surface from a volume, with controls for voxel size, adaptivity, capping, shell treatment, smoothing and dilation or erosion. This is mesh preparation with consequences: it changes the vertex count, so the modifier belongs below the other TenPix modifiers. Finer triangles buy detail with simulation time; the GPU does not accept exposure as payment.

Tnpix Gravity supplies an animatable magnitude and direction. Without it, a Solver group has no gravity. Tnpix Forces connects Max space warps, including Wind, Drag, Vortex, Motor, Push and PBomb, retaining their settings and animation. Forces can be limited by painted channels, spatial active zones and frame ranges. A gust can therefore address the hem specifically, rather than emailing the entire outfit.

Collision course, with four routes

The Solver offers Volume Only, Volume + Proxy, Surface + Volume and the default Surface (True Geometry). Volume Only uses a voxel distance field and cannot resolve sub-voxel features; hybrid modes add surface tests. True Geometry uses actual triangles without a volume field or its deep-penetration recovery. Begin with the garment clear of the body. “We’ll fix it in the folds” remains questionable production advice.

Tnpix Collision merges collider lists across the group, with individual thickness, friction, grip, smoothing, open-mesh and two-sided settings. Volume modes can simplify collider geometry. Material overrides determine whether cloth or collider settings govern surface response: a slippery floor and gripping belt need different terms of engagement.

Tnpix Self Collision handles folds and garment interaction. Basic samples contacts at each step’s start; Optimized adds crossing recovery; Advanced subdivides contact evaluation for fast folds and twists. Edge-edge tests catch crossings that point-to-face tests miss. Thickness, friction and layer ordering govern separation and which garment yields. The shirt can establish boundaries with the jacket.

Fabric, paint and a controlled attachment

Tnpix Material Standard supplies twelve stock fabrics: cotton, silk, denim, leather, wool, linen, chiffon, satin, spandex, polyester, canvas and velvet. Several are explicitly approximate starting points. Materials can be assigned to painted regions, so a garment can combine different physical fabrics. Custom Standard and Advanced presets can be saved and loaded; the preset stores fabric settings rather than the channel binding. A library saves repeated tuning, although naming everything “final_fabric” merely relocates the problem.

Tnpix Material Advanced exposes mass per area, normal/tangential air drag, stretch, compression, shear, bending, plasticity, grain and stretch limits. Fabric Curve stiffens as the weave locks; Shape Memory refers to modelled fold angles. Warp/weft controls introduce directional behaviour. These physical materials leave surface shading to the render department, which still has a job.

Tnpix Channel provides named vertex weight maps from zero to one. Painting, component selections, mirroring and selection tools define regions read by materials, pins, preservation, stitches, tears, rigid pieces and finishing modifiers. A freehand Tear brush defines cut lines. Named regions make the setup easier to inspect than a collection of anonymous vertex selections, particularly when the sleeve has acquired more dependencies than the shot.

Tnpix Pin holds regions or follows animated objects, with soft/dynamic attachment, distance limits, active times and zones. Tnpix Preserve follows deformation below the Solver, including Skin, Skin Wrap, Morpher or Point Cache. Weight one follows animation exactly and excludes collisions; zero simulates; intermediate values blend. The cuff keeps its performance while the sleeve develops opinions.

Tnpix Stitch joins garments within one Solver group or joins a garment to its own folded sections. Search distance finds the attachment surface; tightness, offset, strength and seam passes control the hold. Optional sliding keeps an attachment on the target surface while allowing movement with friction, and time or zone controls determine when it acts. This covers sewn seams, tacked folds and sliding attachments without pretending that every relationship should be a pin. Some clothes need commitment; others need space.

Rip, fray, inflate, wobble

Tnpix Tear splits the mesh under load: Map restricts failure to paint, Stretch breaks overextended edges, and Pressure works with Volume to burst a region. Thresholds, graded weakness, zones and frame ranges control failure. “Coming apart at the seams” can finally be an approved deliverable.

Tnpix Threads generates warp/weft ends along tears, threads spanning cracks and fringe on painted borders. UV or combed grain, spacing, varied lengths, strays, clumping and frizz shape the look. Dynamic threads hang, swing, collide and snap after the cloth solve; Follow the cloth omits swinging. Tubes join the cloth or a separate object without altering the underlying solve. Literal loose ends, for a change.

Tnpix Volume preserves closed shells or painted regions around a centre, with Keep volume/Pressure modes, softness, animatable ratios and buoyancy. Tnpix Rigid makes painted regions or suitable mesh elements solid, adding mass, rigidity, bounce, friction and damping to buttons, buckles and plates. A buckle deserves some weight in the discussion.

The experimental Tnpix Soft Body fills a closed mesh with tetrahedra for fat, jelly, rubber or muscle behaviour, including volume retention and collisions alongside cloth. Density, stiffness, damping and resolution control the result; fibres add contraction, tendons and a movable bulge. The developer explicitly describes the muscle model as entry level, rather than a full anatomical system. An open mesh gets no internal flesh and behaves as cloth. Check that the character has a closed surface before asking it to show some backbone.

The buttons behind the buttons

The TenPix Graph displays groups, objects, modifiers and settings, with right-click additions, drag reordering and native undo. Seven toolbar tools provide Quick Cloth, Cache Manager, Quality, Cloth Doctor, Tearing Sample, Forces and Quick Soft Body. They cover setup, batch cache management, quality adjustment, diagnosis, a tearing example, force editing and soft-body preparation. Cloth Doctor fixes safe cases, without promising universal tailoring on the NHS.

MAXScript exposes the panels; the scripting guide covers automation. Deadline scripts record caches with frame progress, one task per Solver group, distributing independent solves. The developer claims repeatability for unchanged scenes/settings; DP has not independently benchmarked performance or cross-machine repeatability.

For garment construction, Marvelous Designer remains a sensible upstream choice when pattern cutting and garment authoring are the main job. TenPix’s attraction is keeping the subsequent simulation beside Max animation, modifiers and rendering.

Before the fitting

Use the demo with a shot’s actual garment, animation and layering demands. The official documentation details the controls and workflows; collision cost and mesh density deserve testing before production. Whether the trousers behave remains a matter for the trousers.