From installation
to your first production Bake.

Requirements

Install Cloth NeXt

1. 1
   Download the product ZIP

   Keep the extension archive intact. Do not extract it.

2. 2
   Open Get Extensions

   Go to Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions.

3. 3
   Install from Disk

   Open the repository menu, choose Install from Disk, and select the ZIP.

4. 4
   Enable Cloth NeXt

   Enable the extension and restart Blender whenever Blender requests it.

Install the solver from Cloth NeXt

The solver is not included in the add-on ZIP, but can be installed directly from the add-on preferences.

1. 1
   Open Cloth NeXt Preferences

   Find Cloth NeXt under Blender's installed Add-ons.

2. 2
   Start the guided installation

   Choose the managed solver installation option shown in the preferences.

3. 3
   Review and confirm

   Cloth NeXt shows the compatible release and asks for confirmation before installation.

4. 4
   Run Solver Health Check

   A compatible protocol and schema marks the solver Ready.

Your first Cloth Bake

1. 1
   Prepare the mesh

   Use clean, constant topology and intentional object scale.

2. 2
   Add the Cloth role

   In Physics Properties, add Cloth NeXt and select Cloth.

3. 3
   Add a Collider

   Enable Cloth NeXt on the collision mesh and choose Collider.

4. 4
   Choose material and quality

   Start from a material preset and use a lower quality tier while iterating.

5. 5
   Validate and Bake

   Resolve Scene Health messages, set the frame range, then start the Bake.

Build one interacting scene

Start with one of 75 material presets

The material library provides categorized starting points for common fabrics and flexible materials. Presets fill artist-facing controls for surface weight, stretch response, sideways response, bending, friction and stretch protection. Editing a value keeps the preset as a starting point and moves the material into a custom state.

Attach cloth without freezing the performance

Create a Blender vertex group on the deformable and assign it as the pin group.

Animated targets are useful for rig-driven waistbands, cuffs, collars, straps and other attachment areas. Evaluated topology must remain constant throughout the Bake range.

Control collisions and surface behavior

Friction controls how easily surfaces slide. Surface Offset represents simulated thickness. Collision Gap controls when contact response begins. Animated colliders are sampled from evaluated Blender geometry.

Create faster character collision proxies

Character Collision Cages create animation-aware proxy geometry around a rig. The generated structure stays visible and editable in Blender, making it useful for heavy characters where simulating against the full mesh is unnecessary.

• Per-bone collision structure
• Animation-aware proxy generation
• Reusable evaluated data
• Optional workflow, not required for every character

Animate gravity, wind and air response

Add an Empty, enable Cloth NeXt and choose the Force role. Supported gravity, wind and air controls can be animated through normal Blender properties and are evaluated with the rest of the Bake scene.

Know what the Bake is doing

The Bake Companion reports the current frame, total progress, solver activity, estimated timing and system load.

• Results are written as versioned object-local playback caches.
• Incomplete output is never presented as a finished result.
• A failed Rebake preserves the previous valid result.
• Clear Result removes only Cloth NeXt-owned files and playback.

Resume instead of starting from frame one

When a valid checkpoint survives an unexpected solver exit, Cloth NeXt verifies that the recovery data belongs to the active scene and compatible solver installation before offering Resume from Latest.

When a Bake fails

1. 1
   Read the CNX code

   The Bake Companion and Blender show a stable code such as CNX-E161.

2. 2
   Follow the displayed guidance

   The error state names the likely cause, affected stage and recommended first action.

3. 3
   Run Scene Health

   Check geometry, storage, compatibility, memory and solver readiness.

4. 4
   Retry after correction

   Fix the reported issue, then start a new Bake or resume from a verified checkpoint when available.

Important limitations

• Windows x64 and a compatible NVIDIA GPU are currently required.
• The solver is intended for offline production simulation, not real-time playback.
• Topology-changing deformation across a Bake is rejected.
• Playback requires constant vertex order and vertex count.
• Rod / Cable currently uses a uniform simulated collision radius.
• Soft Body requires a closed manifold mesh.
• Capacity depends on topology, contacts, samples, quality, VRAM and RAM.
• The solver is not included in the add-on ZIP and is installed from the add-on preferences.

What to include in a support request

Run Scene Health and choose Export Privacy-Safe Report. Send the report with the visible CNX error code, Blender version, GPU model and short reproduction steps using the support contact on the Superhive product page.