I'm an idiot. I admit it. I've done this before, and I can't remember how. My new Imagination Gown for Ichiro is all done, except for the final boning/conforming. I can't remember how to get the hip to bend with the thighs. The lower part of the gown is all one big hip, the hip bone has the two thighs attached (no buttocks). No 1K chains. What am I forgetting? Here's a pic of what I've done so far. You can see the problem. Thanks in advance!

Will a nerd do? You need to add "ghost" thighs to your conformer. Then the hip will have something to follow. When I build conformers I always add at least 1 ghost part beyond the actual clothing.

I don't know Jim.....what i do is cut two thighs in it then use pwizard, that then puts in 2 ghost shins but doesn't weld the thighs to the hip so i add the welds to the cr2 by hand, can't do ghost thighs coz pwizard puts ghost buttocks in instead....Nerd do you have a tutorial on doing this coz i really need to get my head around this kind of thing, i love pwizard and would never part with it but i need to understand what its doing rather than letting it do it ;o).....Steve

Putting thighs in is certainly a good first step. Now when you pose the figure move the thighs not the buttocks, which is what I think you have done in your image. From there you can add more ghost parts as the others have said, just remember that the more complex the more chances it will go wrong. Simplest from what you have now is to add some morphs to the lower portion of the robe. Flare front, flare back etc.

For greater refinement see what I did in my beachwear set. There the whole skirt is the hip group. The figure's hierarchy includes buttocks, thighs and shins parented to match Vicki. Then to each of the lower body parts I have parented an extra group run by JCJ coding. It is these extra parts that control the hip of the skirt.

Its a body part that does not have any mesh assigned to it. You can included one by either editing a CR2 file by hand or by writing a hierarchy file.

This one is still driving me crazy. I think I'll have to start researching JCJ. I've got the skirt as a single hip, with bones for buttocks, thighs, and shins. I can get partial poses to work (twist on the buttock and thigh), but of I move the feet the same way did in the example, it still doesn't flow with the body. I also tried adding a "midsection" the way the gown for Konish does. That gives me a good twist and bend on the skirt, but still doesn't fix the problem. Part of it may be that Ichiro isn't built the same as what I'm used to (Mike). His buttocks reach almost to his knees, then you've got a short thigh section, then the shins. Interesting problem. Now to start searching for JCJ tutorials. Thanks for the attempts, guys. I'm real happy with the way I got the object to look with the gown flow, and I really don't want to scrap it.

You might want to try the quick-and-dirty solution - see http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1096097 ...for details. Good luck - dresses and robes are THE challenge for clothing makers, IMHO ;o)