extend selection gradient across surfaces

Reality Hack

I'm attempting to apply dForce to hair. The hair has a skull cap, and I can select that okay. How do I extend that selection by a certain amount in a gradient across the other surfaces of the hair so I can freeze the skull cap and a little bit of the other geometry around it?

Thanks in advance.

crosswind

What do you mean by gradient...? Are you painting the weight on a dForce modifier weight node or you just wanna smooth some weight ?

Be noted, a hair cap doesn't have to be simulated or given any weight...

Reality Hack

Okay, so here's what I'm wanting to do. Hopefully, this makes a little more sense. (Please forgive the crude mock-ups.)

I can select the cap (shown in yellow). I'm wondering if there's a way I can 'grow' the selection as a gradient or radius out from the current selection (shown in red) as opposed to just selecting the next polygons immediately around the selection.
Now here's the thing: that geometry isn't directly 'attached' to the cap. (They don't share any edges.) It's part of the same object, but not attached to the cap.

My hope is that I can do this, then freeze the gradient selection along with the cap so that it doesn't move during the simulation while the rest of the hair does.

crosswind

In such a case, I'm afraid there's no way to do so as the geometry of Cap is not connected with hair card Surfaces... grow selection or select connected / boundary won't work. You have to carefully Drag to select....

Besides, Freeze Simulation only works on a dForce item rather than dynamic surfaces. You need to add a dForce Modifier Weight Node then add weight maps as well as fill and smooth the weight as needed.