Blender Tutorial: Fold Towel Using a Cylinder

Cloth simulation sounds terrifying until you realize the core idea is brutally simple: make one object behave like fabric, then push it around with something else. That is it. No fluid dynamics degrees required. This tutorial breaks down Blender cloth simulation using a cylinder as the folding tool, and the result is a convincingly crumpled towel without any complex setups or paid plugins.

Setting Up Your Geometry

Three objects, zero complexity. A floor, a cylinder, and a plane for the towel. Select your towel plane, jump into Edit mode, press A to select everything, then scale on the Y-axis with S > Y > 2 > Enter. This doubles the towel length and ensures uniform subdivisions from your subdivision surface modifier.

Add a loop cut with Ctrl+R to divide the towel in half - left click then right click to confirm. This midline is your reference point for the first fold. Tab back to Object mode when done.

Getting the Fabric Look

The towel material is a Principled Shader with roughness cranked to 0.9 - soft, matte fabric appearance. An image texture feeds through a Color Ramp for the blue color, then into Base Color. The same image texture passes through a Displacement node for surface depth, with displacement scale at 0.1. Subtle texture without visible pixelation.

After you apply the material, right-click the towel and select Shade Smooth. But here is the catch - without dense enough geometry, the towel will not fold realistically. This is where subdivision surface modifiers earn their keep.

Subdivision and Collision Setup

Add a Subdivision Surface modifier with Simple mode (not Catmull-Clark) - Simple preserves edge sharpness better for cloth work. Set both viewport and render subdivision values to 5. The towel needs dense geometry to fold naturally, and this is the step most people skip.

Switch to the Physics tab and click Cloth. Enable Self Collisions so fabric layers interact realistically. Set the distance value to 0.01 - too high and your towel floats, too low and fabric penetrates itself during tight folds.

The cloth simulator needs time to settle after each fold. Extend your scene end frame to 350 and set the simulation cache end value to match. Rushing this step is where most people’s folds look wrong.

Giving the Towel Thickness

Real towels have volume. Add a Solidify modifier after the cloth modifier, set offset to 0 so thickness centers on the original mesh, then add another Subdivision Surface modifier with subdivision values of 2 for both viewport and render. This smooths the final geometry and makes the towel read as actual fabric rather than a flat surface.

The floor needs collision configuration too. Select it, enable Collision in the Physics tab, and set Thickness Outer to 0.001 in the Soft Body and Cloth section. Increase friction to 80 - you want the towel to settle rather than slide around during folds.

The Cylinder Animation

The folding sequence runs across 291 frames: cylinder moves upward from frame 1 to 50, presses down and sideways until frame 100, then quickly moves away so the towel settles. At frame 102, the cylinder rotates 90 degrees and repositions below the floor for the second fold. By frame 110, it starts the second fold. Three folds total.

The critical detail: each fold direction differs. That intentionally sloppy look is the point - not precision, but convincing crumpling. Between folds, the extended timeline lets cloth settle naturally before the next pressure application.

Baking and Extracting Static Frames

Select the towel, open the Cache section, and click Bake. Depending on your hardware, this takes a moment. Once baked, you can delete and re-bake if adjustments are needed - the cloth modifier preserves its state.

If you want a static folded towel instead of an animation, apply modifiers in the correct order: first the top subdivision modifier, then the cloth modifier. After applying, scrubbing the timeline shows the cylinder moving while the towel stays frozen at its current state - perfect for capturing a single folded pose.

The Bottom Line

Blender cloth simulator handles the complex physics so you do not have to. Prepare geometry with enough subdivision, configure cloth and collision parameters, animate the folding object with deliberate timing, and let the simulator calculate the fabric response. The cylinder technique transfers to tablecloths, shirts, paper - adjust geometry and timing, the principle stays the same. Start simple, bake often, iterate toward what you need.