Why doesn't my Unreal cloth simulate after spawning the actor?

Cloth requires per-vertex Max Distance painted in the Cloth Painting tool; default 0 means fully constrained. Paint values, save, the cloth simulates in PIE.

Place a WindDirectionalSource in the scene and set the cloth asset's Wind sensitivity. Without wind in scene, cloth only responds to gravity and motion.

Cloth on dynamically spawned skeletal mesh?

On spawn, call SkeletalMeshComponent → ResetClothTeleport to wake the simulator. Otherwise cloth may freeze in initial pose.

Fix: Unreal Cloth Doesn't Simulate After Spawn

Quick answer: Open Skeletal Mesh → Cloth Painting → paint Max Distance > 0. WindDirectionalSource in scene. ResetClothTeleport on spawn.

Cape on character. Hangs stiff. Max Distance painting wasn’t done; vertices fully constrained.

The Fix

Skeletal Mesh editor:
  Cloth Painting → activate
    Brush: Max Distance, Value 15
    Paint cape body; leave shoulders at 0 (anchor)
  Apply, Save

Scene:
  + WindDirectionalSource (force 0.5)

Spawn flow:
  AfterSpawn: SkelMesh->ResetClothTeleport()

Painted vertices simulate. Anchored vertices (Max Distance = 0) follow the bone. Wind adds motion. ResetClothTeleport ensures simulator state is fresh on respawn.

Verifying

Cape sways with motion. Walk against wind: visible flutter. Without painting: fully rigid.

“Paint distances. Wind in scene. Reset on spawn.”

Related Issues

For Water character buoyancy, see water buoyancy. For physics asset trace, see trace channel.

Paint. Wind. Reset.