Rope Physics Causing Issues I've read through a few questions, watched at least 5 videos and I'm getting stuck on this. Hoping more experienced users can help me out.
In the attached Blend file, I've got a mortar board I've created and I'm in the process of trying to get the first strand ready. I'm talking about the cord that connects from the pin at the top of the hat to the brass or metal piece before all the strands.
I finally seem to have some of the settings right because the string is pinned where I want it. However, it's like the hat doesn't exist. I have collision turned on. Can someone give me an idea of what I'm doing wrong? Or if you have one, an easier way to go about these next steps?
I'm trying to get this project finished by tomorrow (or the weekend). Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
First, you need to fix the normals on the hat.  They're pointing the wrong direction.  This can often cause issues with physics, which can use normals to decide inside/outside-- what's solid and what's not.
But that's not the only issue.  The other issue is that you're colliding simple, low-vert-density strings of verts-- remember, your skin modifier isn't even being evaluated until after the physics-- and so there are only a few places on the mesh that are even being checked for collision with the hat.
By default, soft body physics like you're using uses virtual balls centered on each vertex of the mesh to test for collision.  And if you play that animation, after fixing normals, you'll notice that none of your vertices ever go through your hat.  The collision is working!  It's just that it looks wrong, because even though the verts collide properly, the edges still go through the hat.
One thing you can do is, just make more verts.  This will create more places along your string for Blender to test for collision with the hat.  Subdivide your strings to create 3 or 4 times as many verts.  Do this in edit mode: modifiers won't be evaluated until after your soft body physics have run.  You'll probably have to tweak your physics settings afterwards: more verts means more freedom of motion, which usually needs to be compensated for by strengthening soft body edge forces.
Another option is to use edge collision instead of vertex collision.  In properties/physics/soft body/edges, you'll see a checkmark for &quot;collision edge&quot;.  If you enable this, Blender will try to use the edges of the mesh for collision.  I think you'll see that you'll still want more vertices than you have right now though.