I am trying to put on a dynamic cloth, which is a coat on my figure but I do not know why the cloth just dont get itself put on the figure correctly. I tried calculating simulation from starting frame 1 to 900. Everything went fine but it ALWAYS got stuck somewhere around frame 380-420. The figure was standing still all the time until somewhere frame 375 then start to run forward. Initially, I thought it needed more time and so I leave it there calculating but it took more than 4hours and it is still at stuck there calculating the same frame number 4hours ago! The numbers beside the 'Simulating Frame ###' on the top of the scene window still moves but like jumping back and forth. Later, I decided to calculate the simulation part by part and then render the whole animation part by part then join them together later on. However, I can't as there were problems again. I started calculating the simulation from somewhere around frame 370 where it always get stuck but the clothes always got messed up like all crushed together. Pretty hard to describe and so the image above is what I am trying to mention. I then tried to start from frame 200, where the figure is still standing still, hoping that Poser will think that I am starting from frame 1 and let everything come out fine but once again, it disappointed me as the coat still get messed up into a chunk. I really sick of this problem as it had wasted many of my days just on this part. I had set the cloth to collide with the pants and 2shoes on the figure. Everything else went default. Drape frames was set to 25 and starting to drame from zero was checked. My computer is on p4 2.4ghz 512ddr. So what is the main problem that causes all these and what are the solutions available to solve this problem? Thank you...

Just tried again and discover that it seems to only work if I start draping from frame 1. From frame 2 onwards, whatever drape from there will get messed up. Above is an image of how it looks like when it is draping in frame 1 and frame 2.

forgot to add in my previous post that my figure isnt moving or turning at all in these frames. They turn because they were draping at that time. The figure returns to its original position which is posed by me in the frames after draping.

First, start the draping from zero pose. The setting is a check box on the "Collide Against" dialoge. Second, if at zero pose the clothing mesh intersects the figure, Poser tends to screw up. Notice that the figure's butt is poking through? If the cloth is the wrong size for the figure, or the pants used with the figure poke through and you're colliding against them, then use a magnet on the dynamic clothing to stretch it, export it out as a wavefront object, delete the old clothing, and import in the object you just created. The morph from the magnet should have warped the object and been saved. Sometimes it's hard to tell if at zero pose the clothing intersects the figure. The easiest way is to set the color of the clothing to something dark, and the white of the figure becomes more apparent. Finally, there seems a little bug in the cloth room where sometimes the clothing or figure pose becomes, uh, lost. Try parenting the clothing to the chest of the figure before you drape. That helps sometimes. Hope this helps...

If you haven't yet, get a tutorial on dynamic clothes. (PhilC has a free one on his site, I don't have the link handy but it would be easy enough for you to find.) I have been having a similar problem in which I was trying to simulate a skirt colliding against V3 and stockings she was wearing. For some reason, the simulation freaked out because of the collision with the stockings, and got stuck on a frame. I unchecked collision against the stockings, and the simulation worked fine- except one small part where the stockings show through the skirt, but for now I'm going to take care of that with a transparency map to hide the part of the stockings that aren't supposed to show through. Just a band-aid solution, but it will work for my particular pose. You might try something similar until you can figure out a better solution. Just collide against the guy but not the pants. If any part of the pants show through the coat, you can probably take care of it with a transmap to hide that part of the pants. A band-aid, but it might work for you to get your render finished.

pdxjims, what do u mean by the clothing intersects the figure? Do you mean the cloth touches the figure? bjbrown, yes, I had read that tutorial more than once before. I tried your solution but it is like it still get stuck when it reaches the part when it is ready to run. :(

The cloth not only touched the bum, it actively passes through the bum cheecks. You can see the figures bum cheecks through the coat. Poser is therefore going to have a hard time with collision detection and prevention because the cloth is colliding with the body to start with. Cliff

Attached Link: http://www.poserfashion.net/tutorials.htm

At the first frame, the cloth must not intersect the figure... So take care if you use a dynamic cloth for Don (i think this coat is for Don) and put it on M3 for example... Some parts of M3 could touch the cloth... this will "destroy" your cloth. ******* If you use the good character for the dynamic cloth, you must know one thing: some people create the cloth for the "zeroed figure" or for the original figure... I explaion myself: load the main figure (for example Don) load the cloth props (the coat for Don) if nothing intersects, it's ok... If it intersects, select the body of the main figure, open the joint editor and "zero" the figure... Now, the cloth should not intersect the main character... ****** You may find a good and complete tutorial at PoserFashion...

yes, this is a coat for Don and i am using Don as the figure. so looks like this is the problem that caused the calculation process to always got stucked? i tried putting the figure to zero figure but it seems that the cloth still intersects the figure. And if i put the figure to that, then isnt it going to damage my animation as it suddenly has the figure all stretched to a 'T' shape?

OK, well, I've done a little quick research and have a fix for you... let me take a few minutes to create each image and post a mini-tut here (bear in mind I don't have the coat you're using so I'll use one that came free with Poser 5). Cheers, Cliff PS bear in mind that I'll be doing this "live" - and I haven't even tested the latter stages...

First let's start with a nude Don and add some Dress Suit Pants (and conform them to don). Note that these aren't a perfect fit to begin with, but it looks like these are the pants you're using.

Let's add a "prop" cloth item - I'll use the P5ManOvercoat because it seems the closest to what you're trying to use. Not that without any pose changes the coat intersects both Don (shoulder areas) and the "pants", and so will not naturally "drape".

Doh! Image Note that there is a way of getting cloth to drape to a figure without setting the figure to zero pose, but I'll go teh long way around so that you can see why that often fails (and how to get around it).

Making sure you hav eDon selected, pick the "Joint Editor" item from the Window menu (this will bring up the "Joint Parameters" window. It's annoying that they don't use the same name for it everywhere). Press "Zero Figure" to get the figure into its zero pose. If in this pose any part of the cloth intersects with the figure then the usual "fix" of having Poser 5 pre-calculate the cloth to fit your character will *fail* because it is still starting from a position where the cloth and figure intersect. Note that this P5-provided cloth intersects with our character even in zero pose... so we need another solution.

Change display mode so that you can see what intersects where more easily. Set frame 30 (basically the last frame of the default document) as a key frame for Don and for the pants. Set frame 1 as a key frame also. Reposition body parts to fit inside the clothing, including scaling where need be (in this case, with IK turned on for legs I ahve moved the feet in and back, and also scaled down the x and z scaling for hip, buttocks, and thighs). The result isn't pretty, we're just trying to make sure that the figure is entirely inside the clothing.

Oops - changing the dress pants hip X and Z changed the coat's scaling or position. that was unexpected, I've tweaked my settings to ensure a better fit. You may need to repeat this several times depending on the design of cloth you're trying to fit, and what extra items you want to include (like pants, socks, belts, shirts, etc. etc.)

If you play your animation now (30 frames, just for fitting the coat) you'll see that the body goes from fitting the cloth to the pose we want it in (I' post a copy but I don't have a gif animation program loaded).

In the Cloth Room, set up a new simulation. Note the Drape Frames option for later consideration. Note that the selections here are slower than default because I have the simulation checking for more types of collision.

Clothify the coat and select "Collide Against". Make sure you set the simulation to collide the coat against everything it COUDL collide with (for accuracy) but remove anything it can't collide with (like the eyes!) for speed.

Note the "start draping from zero pose" option. If the cloth fits when the figure is in it's zero pose then selecting this option will save us a lot of hassle. Poser 5 will use the Drape Frames (set above) as "hidden" frames before your animation to calculate the cloth into place for your animation starting at frame 1 in a user-defined pose. However, our cloth does NOT fit in zero pose, so we have more work to do.

Click "Calculate Simulation" and the clothing simulation will start, calculating the fit along our 30 frames... the last frame (30) now has the coat fitting Don in his 2zero2 pose. We're getting there!

Bearing in mind that this fit should be checked (I see problems BEHIND the character when I move the camera!) you should adjust the nubmer of "Steps per Frame" in Simulation Settings (or the number of frames) and re-calculate the draping until you are happy with the fit. Since we're going to create a version of the coat which WILL fit Don from his zero pose (and will therefore be quicker and easier in use for later animations/poses) we may as well do a good job now and save time later.

Increasing the "Step per frame" from 2 to 8 did the job for me - the rear of the coat now looks much betetr. We now have 2 basic ways we can go. We can inlcude these 30 frames - or somethign very like them - in front of evry animation/pose that we do to make the coat fit. We can prevent these frames from rendering by using the Aniamtion Pallette, but even so this would invovle considerable calculation every time. I'd prefer to see if we can create our own variant of the coat which will work without having to force-fit it every time... so let's go to the last frame (30) and export the coat as a .OBJ file...single frame...de-select everything and make sure the coat is all that is selected...give it a name (I'm using "P5ManOverCoatFixed.obj")...and use THESE settigns (hopefully right! I haven't tested from here on in yet...)

Right - just to be SURE, let's start a new document. Nice and clean. Put a new Don in it, add the pants, and conform the pants to Don. Do NOT set Don to zero pose. Then import the new coat .OBJ file... create a new cloth similation as above, but this time set "Drape Frames" to 15 and tick "start draping from zero pose". Now when you hit "Calculate Simulation" you'll see Poser calculate the 15 pre-pose/pre-animation "draping frames". While these never render you can see the figure and cloth go from the zero pose to whatever pose you have in frame 1. Note that it's not unusual for it to look as if the fit is poor during this procedure (and again, depending on your final pose you may need to adjust the number of steps per frame and the whole thing may even fail horribly). You may wish to save this version of the coat in your Props Library. Hope this helped, Cheers, Cliff Bowman

Oh - I've just taken a closer look. Obviously when first clothified I should have taken more care to set the shape of the "collar" of the coat as being a "constrained group" to retain its shape, as clothifying it has lost the definition completely :( a project for another day, the principles remain the same on a general basis. Cheers, Cliff

Attached Link: http://www.philc.serveftp.net/files/freestuff/DonLongCoat01.zip

a big thanks to ur tutorial :) hmm...do i just import it into the file which i had my animation of my figure ready? and when import, do i have to move the coat to the figure's body and position it accurately? because when i import, the cloth is like far away from the figure, in the center of the scene. i tried moving to the figure and start the calculation but it got stuck immediately when I click calculate simulation as the draping meter just don move and never drapes. i then tried to import the coat into a brand new file with no animations in it at all, it does worked. but when i try to move the figure, the coat did follow the figure like what the original coat does. i got this coat from phil c.'s website. u can try it from the attached url.

Ah! A PhilC item. Thought it looked familiar. Well, that at least means it'll be a quality item - and I should have a copy here to install and try. Gimem a couple of hours to test, but I think you SHOULD be able to drape "from zero position" without moving Don. I've got to keep the PC "free" for recording a TV program for my 2YO son, but after that I'll give PhilC's coat a go and see what turns up. Cheers, Cliff

Right - as I suspected onc e knew it was a Philc item, it fits Don in his zero pose seemingly perfectly. Looks like a great fit. However, if you add a layer of "real" clothing below the coat (rather than just painting Don's skin to look like clothing) the coat doesn't fit QUITE so well. Here you can se the "pants" poke through the front of the coat...

...and also the back. I suspect that Phil usually does "complete clothing sets" - as in they're not REALLY designed to be "worn" with other items of clothing. This would help keep the poly count down (and so improve memory usage and make cloth draping etc. quicker) but since you seem to want pants on the guy as extra we'd better try to incorporate them. It shouldn't be difficult, just take a teensy bit of effort and playing around. Ooops - I hear my son getting up. This thread may be a little bitty!

As previously, we'll set up a 30 frame animation to produce a "tweaked" version of the coat. With keyframes on frame 1 and frame 30, set the zScales for frame 1 as follows: Hip:90 rButtock:50 lButtock:50 Right Thigh:50 Left Thigh:50 If you play the animation with front or back camera you should see that the pants start off not showing through the coat any more, and expand to full size (poking thrugh the coat) by frame 30. Once again this is a "live" demo, so we may need to go back and adjust these (or other) parameters later and re-try. But doing this "live" is partly supposed to show how confident I am that this coat will behave as expected and get you up and running reasonably easily.

Set the Document Display Style to "Wireframe" and then referring back to post 18 onwards (because I'm too lazy to redocument stuff for this coat specifically) create a clothing sim with 2 steps per frame and 0 draping frames (do NOT start draping from zero pose). Before running the simulation, however, we'll press the "Edit Choreographed Group" button and select everything above the hip (be careful to make sure you don't seelct anything that could collide with the pants hip). By being in wireframe mode we have automatically selected the back as well as the front of the coat. Since all of this fits Nude Don perfectly we don't need (or want) it to move (this should improve calculation speed and leave the coat looking as PhilC intended, with any luck!).

OK, well child aside I had some problems with Poser 5 freezing up trying to drape the cloth. The solution I've found is: 1. Set the same xScale parameters for the pants parts - they were (very slightly) catching on the cloth. 2. Set the pants to be children of Don. I actually did this using the Hierarchy editor, but "Set PArent" should work too. Poser 5 seems to be MUCH happier calculating collisions for just one object, or 1 object and it's children (conformed objects do not count as children). As previously, let's export the result from the last frame to a Wavefront .OBJ file.

I'm out of tiem and both child and cloth room are winding me up a bit. Here's a quick summary of some points that will hopefully steer you towards a good conclusion: Import the new coat variation. Create a Cloth Simulation but do not calculate. Instead set up the various different bits of cloth behaviour you'll need (e.g. make everything with the button texture into part of the "Rigid decorated Group" (so teh buttons don't fall away or bend). Experiemtn with makign detailed parts of cloth (like the neck, or the "seam" down the front) stiffer to prevent loss of detailing (play around with constrained, choreographed, and even additional dynamic groups with very stiff settings). Use Hierarchy editor to make the coat a child of Don (I actually used the chest in a few tests, but the body or "Figure 1" entries should work too). Now when you save the coat to the props library you'll be able to save it as a smart prop - which means that when you add this new version of the coat to a scene it will auto-locate to the location of the selected figure (Don). Tadaaa! No need to pose the coat... When you start a new scene, put Don where and how you want him, then bring in the new smart-prop version of the coat. You'll then have to clothify it and make sure the groups are as you've tested today/soon so that they'll work OK, and make sure you have enough steps per frame and enough draping frames for the coat to reshape to fit (be aware that no item of cloth will work in EVERY pose - there is plenty of room for failure!). However this shuld basically work. Reconsider which Don t use. If you can use Casual Don (maybe with a few tweaks) rather than Don plus various bits of clothing then many cloth room issues will be avoided! Maybe someone can come up with a Don hybrid character - naked above the waist but wearing pants - but for the meantime that's my best stab at minimal assistance/comments for you. Sorry I don't have time to try more right now (I'm really going to have to spend more time on this because now I've played around with PhilC's coat I love it!) but I wish you the best of luck - and hope that SR4 fixes cloth room "niggles" (like crashes!). Cheers, Cliff

Btw , cloth simmulation run little different with walk ,which alot tutorial cover it . but ive successfully , make M3 run with don dynamic cloth i dont need 200 frames , only 45 frames (with runs pose start in frame 11 , drape frames from zero) but , consider about touching figures with cloth , use line display mode to align , i prefer not to scale main figure down , but scale up the cloth , until no contact between them ( check in line display mode)