I've been experimenting a bit with various mesh topologies. I don't have a definitive conclusion yet, but I'm leaning toward homogeneous (all quads cut on same diagonal) triangles.

Been playing with dropping a cloth on a chair.

However, no matter what I've tried, the cloth always passes through itself somehwere in this test. You can see an area where this happened here near the closest seat corner.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)