Blender Soft Body Goal Settings Explained

In Blender, the Goal setting in a soft body simulation acts as an anchor that constrains an object’s vertices to their original shape, rest position, or underlying animation. By blending dynamic physics with predefined movement, the Goal prevents an object from fully collapsing or flying away under external forces, allowing creators to achieve controlled, elastic deformations like flesh jiggles, tail wagging, or swaying antennas.

How the Goal Setting Works

When you enable a Soft Body simulation on an object, Blender treats its vertices as a network of mass points connected by springs. Without a Goal, the object is completely subject to gravity and collisions, behaving like a free-floating, deformable jelly. Enabling the Goal forces the simulation to pull vertices back toward their animated or static base positions.

Key Parameters in the Goal Panel

• Vertex Group: Assigning a vertex group allows you to control which parts of the mesh are pinned and which are free to move. Vertices with a weight of 1.0 stay strictly locked to the original animation, while vertices with a weight of 0.0 are fully driven by physics.
• Stiffness: This defines how firmly the vertices are pulled back to the goal position. A higher stiffness creates a rigid, snappy response, while a lower value allows for loose, heavy sagging and trailing motion.
• Damping: Controls how quickly the oscillations settle down. Higher damping prevents endless wobbling, making the material appear more shock-absorbent (like heavy fat or rubber), whereas low damping produces prolonged, bouncy vibrations.
• Default, Min, and Max: When using vertex weights, these sliders define the minimum and maximum spring strengths applied to the lowest (0.0) and highest (1.0) weighted vertices.

Common Use Cases

• Rigged Characters: Adding secondary motion to character features, such as jiggling cheeks, belly fat, or bouncing hair, while keeping the base mesh attached to the armature.
• Hanging Cloth and Banners: Pinning specific vertices of a flag to a pole while letting the remaining fabric respond dynamically to wind and gravity.
• Springy Mechanical Props: Simulating flexible elements like car antennas, foliage, or hanging cables that need to sway but remain fixed at their base.