Hey all :)

Congratulations! It looks like Daz has a real winner with The Dress and I am happy so many people are happy. It also speaks well of the talent that went into it's construction that it approximates with 'old' technology what is usually achieved with simulations.

However the recent "online" polls have shown a large percentage of the Poser community is using P5... and a product like The Dress is exactly the sort of thing that dynamic cloth simulations are good for in a extremely straight forward way.

The dress is, itself, a pretty simple mesh. The value of the product comes from the extrodinary effort that has gone into the morphs. Effort I applaud, and effort that honestly seems to me a attempt to duplicate something the software many of us use has built in.

A dynamic version of The Dress would have eliminated the need for all those morphs, would fit every character (within reason) and always pose and fold correctly. The cloth could be varied from leather to spandex easily and custom body morphs would not result in poke through. The train would flow correctly every frame of an animation.

I guess my dissapointment is that this style of clothing would have been the >perfect< vehicle to bring the majority of the Poser users a good look at the benefits of a good dynamic outfit.

This is not to take anythign away fromt he triumph that is "The Dress", but the very excitement over it (a piece of flowing clothing that can finally attempt to move with the figure underneath) seems to be a indication that it is time to move away from conforming clothing.

Anyway, just my thoughts :)

Last comment, a look through the marketplace shows that this may be a trend, that clothign items are now showing up with HUNDREDS of morphs to do things that the cloth simulator could accomplish better in moments or at worst minutes. I woudl love to see those talented modelers put that time into the basic model and not have to spend their time on things the software can already provide.

There are a lot of folks who don't have Poser 5, and don't intend to get it. Since you can pull the dress in as an object and create dynamic cloth with it, I think it was a good move on Daz's part to create it for Poser 4. I have both, but like I said there are some who don't, and I hope NOT to see a trend of all dynamic clothing for that reason. Just my thoughts. 8^) Marque

Maybe thats a compromise for something like The Dress... since the dynamic version would be fairly easy maybe future items of the type should ship with those settings as well, or in another version. After all the effort that went into the "dynamic cloth simulation through massive numbers of morphs" version it would have been a small matter to add a real dynamic version. Ah well, maybe a direct competator to The Dress will arise simply to highlight the differences in old vs. new technology. Thanks for your thoughts :)

There are also P4 users who CAN'T use P5 because their computers are at or under the min req to use P5 and can't justify (or afford)the cost to get a faster cpu just to be able to run P5.

"There are also P4 users who CAN'T use P5 because their computers are at or under the min req to use P5 and can't justify (or afford)the cost to get a faster cpu just to be able to run P5. " I understand the concern, but int his case I don't see it as an issue. The Dress already requires V3 and is in itself a figure with a LOT of morphs (it's claim to fame). Those with relatively anemic machines will no doubt already have problems. Like I said, not starting a war, just thinking out loud.

Would have been nice to see the product include both versions in one. But I wouldn't count on anything from Daz supporting any of the extra features in Poser 5 anytime soon, or ever. As far as the meshes now coming with a ton of morphs, I have yet to have one conform correctly to one of my more 'natural' looking figures. Even with tweaking, it's a tough thing to do. It's the reason I started painting clothing a long time ago and continue to do so.

There are also some who have Poser5 but not an enough powered computer to correctly use dynamic clothing or some, like me, who have Poser5 and a machine with 2 gig memory and obtain a enough good result, maybe one on two try ,with dynamic clothing

As an animator I frankly cant see this "dress" as a viable solution for **ANIMATED cloth simulations :-)

sure it can fake draping somewhat with those morphs for STILLS

But only a true masochist would even consider trying to animate those morphs to match vickies body Doing some complex dance animation or such from a BVH Motion file.

my definition of "Dynamic" cloth ,in the context of 3D animation,
is to react automaticly and naturally to the simulated environmental forces
exerted upon it such as wind, gravity,friction and of course collisions from the body inside the garment.

you can put a 15 speed manual gear box in your honda but it wont be an "automatic" transmission if you still have to shift gears by hand and clutch.

perhaps this new "dress" should be called the
"ultra morphing dress"
or such but it hardly meets the 3D industry standard of "Dynamic"

Message edited on: 07/12/2004 18:42

Yes, it does seem that this could be done better using the Cloth Room. Cloth simulations aren't too bad, as far resources go. At least when compared to gazillions of built-in morphs.

Has anyone tried to clothify The Dress? Does it work? I've tried clothifying the Morphing Fantasy Dress, and some people have reported success, but for me it takes forever. Clothing that's specifically designed to be dynamic is much, much faster.

Marque, thanks for bringing that up. I'm one of those die-hard holdouts who won't buy P5 and probably never will. If P6 shows any promise of not being quirky, then I might consider upgrading, but until that happens, I'm still going to use P4. Melanie

Perhaps it would be nive to have two versions then. One with the morphs for P4 users and one dynamic for P5. The P5 version could be cheaper.

If you export then import the dress you'll have a dynamic version anyway, but if the dress has parts that can't be used dynamically you could export the hip and use that dynamically to create new morphs to suit your pose/animation........Steve

I can understand people defending "their" P4. Yet try to see it also the other way around: P5 users are very often punished, and as good as always when the product comes from daz, simply because they chose for this version of Poser. Which, btw is not unstable or quirky when you meet its system needs. It could be better, agreed, but CL will have to come with much more than a simple "medical check-up" before P6 becomes a success. So either two versions would be better, or P5-specific content should be created. My idea.

IMHO it is a matter of business plan. DAZ has decided not to support Poser 5, and has begun to develop DAZ studio as a beefed up Poser 4 (better lights, better morph management, better library management, improved materials, weight mapping, but no magnets, no dynamic clothes or hair, no shaders in the basic version). They probably acquired Bryce so that DAZ Studio + Bryce can compete with Poser 5 + Vue d'Esprit. Only the future will tell if one of this packs gets the upper hand, or if the market will split. As for the moment, I wouldn't count on DAZ to make content making use of Poser 5's advanced possibilities.

" P5 users are very often punished, and as good as always when the product comes from daz, simply because they chose for this version of Poser. Which, btw is not unstable or quirky when you meet its system needs."

I'm a P5 user (sometimes) and I don't feel "punished" by DAZ...all my DAZ stuff works fine in P5.

BTW, my system more than meets the specs and P5 is very quirky and unstable for me. Yes, I have SR4.

Message edited on: 07/13/2004 11:06

Nope, too many users of P4 would be "punished" if they did that....heh Just pull it into P5 and clothify it. Marque

I'm a P5 user (sometimes) and I don't feel "punished" by DAZ...all my DAZ stuff works fine in P5.

No, it doesn't. You only think it does. ;-)

Seriously, the MAT files never work correctly. Check out this link:

http://www.enmeshed.com/shadermagic/archives/000219.html

If you've only used the MAT files that come with DAZ figures, you're missing out, big-time.

It seems like a sound financial choice on DAZs behalf. Firstly, there are a huge number of low power machines out there, only capable of running Poser 4, if they want to maximise their sales then it makes better sense to support P4. Secondly, the original choice not to support P5 goes back to some copywright ambiguities regarding material created for P5. Somehow there was a concern that Curious Labs could potentially claim some rights to it! Thirdly, as has already been mentioned, DAZ is setting itself up in competition with Curious Labs with regard to both Poser 5 and the forthcoming Poser 6. They're not going to be too keen on making those programs more attractive than their own by giving them all best content! It has been mentioned that Poser 4 users would not really be missing out on The Dress, as their machines would not be able to handle something with that many morphs. Well, I've a PII 350mhz with 128RAM and I manage 3rd Generation figures just fine, thanks to morph injection. I manage the morph heavy clothes better by creating morph injections and light cr2s for them using Injection Magic - which I've discovered is quite easy! I'm now stripping V2 down for morph injection also.

philebus, we both have computers of similar vintage, only I thinks yours may be a bit more vintage than mine :-)
I got a G3 Mac running at 400mhz which is below P5's base req and well below effective usability level so I stay where I am with P4 btw, I don't have trouble with the unimesh models, it's not that weak a system :-)

Message edited on: 07/13/2004 18:29

"If you export then import the dress you'll have a dynamic version anyway" It takes a lot more than this to make an item dynamic in a way that is realistic and useful. Cloth grouping, paramaters, pining and so on all contribute to making it look like a real item and not a bedsheet IMHO. The thing is that it gets a little tiring to pay for something and then have to rebuild it to get it to support the features of the current, shipping version of the software it is built for. In the end it comes down to that Daz has decided not to support P5, and that means there is room for another vendor who decides to step up to the challenge of actually using the features of the program.

The more I get to understand P5, the more frustrated I get with DAZ's refusal to support it. And let's face it, DAZ is an 800 pound gorilla in Poserland. If they started offering Poser 5 MATs and dynamic clothing, a lot more people would become aware of their advantages, and a lot of other merchants would start offering them, too. As it is, most P5 users don't even realize that PP MATs don't work correctly in P5.

And I think it hurts DAZ, too. I used to tell people not to bother with the DAZ textures, they were too expensive and didn't look very good. Well, they didn't look that great because I was applying them with DAZ's PP MAT files. Properly applied, they look great. But how is a newbie ever going to figure that out? And most newbies these days use P5.

Anyways...I've been trying to clothify Steph's morphing fantasy dress, with no luck. I think it intersects her body somewhere. And with those long, close-fitting sleeves, I really can't use my usual trick of scaling up the dress. Maybe I should clothify just the skirt? And what settings should I use when exporting? Anyone have a tutorial for this?