I baked a cloth simulation in Blender: is the bake itself something I can hand to another renderer, or do I export a different file?
A Blender cloth bake is Blender's own cache (inside the saved .blend, or as .bphys files in blendcache_[filename] beside it), protected until cleared and replayed identically; the manual does not present it as interchange. To hand cloth to another renderer, export Alembic: it stores the baked vertex positions and transforms, not the simulation setup, with no particle-system support (hair as zero-width curves, particles as points) and material names only as face sets.
A Blender cloth bake is Blender's own cache (inside the saved .blend, or as .bphys files in blendcache_[filename] beside it), protected until cleared and replayed identically; the manual does not present it as interchange. To hand cloth to another renderer, export Alembic: it stores the baked vertex positions and transforms, not the simulation setup, with no particle-system support (hair as zero-width curves, particles as points) and material names only as face sets.
Curator qualifications: Manual read 2026-10-22; no simulation baked or exported. Whether any other application reads .bphys is not stated (not checked). S35 particle-cache unified-system sentence not re-read.
Limitations: Manual read 2026-10-22; no simulation baked or exported. Pages updated after the producer pin; claim sentences checked on the curator copy.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/import_export/alembic.html",
"note": "Blender 5.2 LTS Manual, Physics > Cloth > Cache (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Baking Physics Simulations (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Alembic (Last updated 2026-10-22)"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/cloth/settings/cache.html",
"note": "Blender 5.2 LTS Manual, Physics > Cloth > Cache (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Baking Physics Simulations (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Alembic (Last updated 2026-10-22)"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/baking.html",
"note": "Blender 5.2 LTS Manual, Physics > Cloth > Cache (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Baking Physics Simulations (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Alembic (Last updated 2026-10-22)"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/particles/emitter/cache.html",
"note": "Blender 5.2 LTS Manual, Physics > Cloth > Cache (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Baking Physics Simulations (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Alembic (Last updated 2026-10-22)"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] A Blender cloth bake is Blender's own cache (inside the saved .blend, or as .bphys files in blendcache_[filename] beside it), protected until cleared and replayed identically; the manual does not present it as interchange. To hand cloth to another renderer, export Alembic: it stores the baked vertex positions and transforms, not the simulation setup, with no particle-system support (hair as zero-width curves, particles as points) and material names only as face sets. · locator: Blender 5.2 LTS Manual, Physics > Cloth > Cache (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Baking Physics Simulations (Last updated 2026-10-22); Blender Manual, Alembic (Last updated 2026-10-22) source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |
Linked records
- cites → https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/import_export/alembic.html
- cites → https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/baking.html
- cites → https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/cloth/settings/cache.html
- cites → https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/particles/emitter/cache.html