Well, I've run many dynamic sims for clothing before, so I'm not a novice to the procedure, however, this one has me frustrated. I have a dress on a character (dynamic), starting in the 0 pose position, and no collisions that I can tell. The full animation is 654 frames long, which is the length of the simulation I have set. The dress drapes fine, and the beginning of the simulation seems to work perfectly... until it hits frame 40 or so. Then the simulation just ends. It doesn't freeze up, it just stops calculating as if it had finished. I checked the simulation length, and as I mentioned, it's set to match the animation length. I've checked for collisions, and again, that seems fine. So what am I missing here? Sometimes it stops near frame 40, sometimes it continues as high as 144 or so, but that's about as far as I've been able to get. Is this a RAM issue? Never had problems running simulations before, but this one is a bit longer than any I've done so far. Computer specs: 2.4 gig P4 1 gig ram 200 gig HD (100 gig free space)

I get this occasionally, I'm afraid I don't have a definitive answer. Though it seems to be after I have run a number of test sims and have changed the default parameters a long way from the original. I usually save the file, close poser, reload the file then set the sim setting back to default (including otions like cloth self collision). Not brilliantly helpful I'm afriad. Take care John.

It's the SR4 for P5. Reinstall the SR3 and it'll get rid of that problem. I don't know if you can just install SR3 over SR4 since I went with the uninstall and reinstall P5 route.

I agree with both Fugaz and amberf. I get this too (just dropping out) but with much smaller simulations (30 frames or less).

The problem seems to me to be not so much with memory but with the dynamics calculations running into problems with changes it can't properly cope with.

The times it has occurred for me is usually shortly after some part of the cloth has either broken up or intersected the body for 2 or 3 frames sequentially.

This (from my own observations only - with only 30 frames I can watch each frame..) tends to be when the clothing
either has thin straps or has to adapt rather too quickly to another pose.

BTW: I don't (yet) do animations, only stills, so the following may not be very relevant, but here goes:

My usual method of overcoming the above is to:

• Start from the default pose, add the clothing and clothify (wonderful word!) it. (NB - I avoid using the "drape" frames, since these cannot be saved 'cos they're "negative" frames, and if anything goes wrong at that stage, you're lost.)

• If the initial draping on the figure is successful I save the resulting clothing out (from whichever frame seems to be best) as a .obj file. (If not successful, I restart from square 1 or give up).

• Quit Poser, restart poser, reload figure and import clothing.

• Then set up # frames (guesstimate), add pose after some sensible # frames, hit +keyframe (just in case) and then edit in the animation editor to break spline (to avoid pose going through wierd contortions due to overrun).

• then re-clothify and hope for the best:-)

From then on in it's a repeat of the last 2 steps....

One BIG problem when using the import/export .obj method I've suggested is that you lose a lot of the P5 special groups. Such as transparency etc. in the Mat room, and any Cloth room (rigid decorated etc.) groups.

You can overcome this (as and when necessary) by creating a NEW copy of the original clothing pp2 file and editing it to replace the existing custom geometry with that of the .obj file.

(Shameless plug) - I have a little app that does just this:-)) It takes an original dynamic cloth file, a derived .obj file and does the copy/past job for me. Available free. Just IM me, e-mail me (click on name to get to my details) or go to J. Witham's site (who is kindly hostng my app for me) for the app. It's by no means perfect, but it does the job..

Cheers,
Diolma

Message edited on: 10/15/2004 17:57

Drat. That should have been "export/import" (not "import/export") method. Also, my advice would be to break the anim into smaller sections if possible...(but then again, I'm no animator so maybe I should shut up...) Cheers, Diolma

SR4 really causes me problems with this. I may back down to SR3 if I can find it. One thing to try is crank up the steps/frame on simulations settings. 10 sometimes allows it to circumvent the problem.

I have had this before, and never solved it. THough on later thought, it occurs to me that it is likely a problem with too many alterations to your original cloth setup causing POser confusion. You might try locating the .dyn file and deleting just it, then retrying your simulation as opposed to going through the whole save delete process? Of course, you may wish to save your scene as a pz3 the first time you try this }-) Good luck! Shogakusha

Thanks, everyone, for all the great input. I'm glad I'm not the only one having these problems, but how frustrating it is nevertheless.

Hmmm. I don't think going back to SR3 will be an option for me, simply because I had problems with dynamic hair in that release that I don't experience in SR4, and since I use the dynamic hair a lot, it could be problematic. :-(

Diolma, your solution sounds interesting, but I'm just not sure if it will work for me in this particular case, due to how long the animation is (well, it's short by animation standards, but long in Poser terms). If all else fails, however, I will be taking you up on that offer to try your app. In fact, I think I'll get in touch with you soon anyway just to have it. Thank you for that.

Dougf, I'm going to try your solution next. I have a feeling it might help, and it's something I didn't even think of. Thanks again!

Message edited on: 10/15/2004 21:13

Maxxx; Do a thorough inspection around the model, particularly the hands and feet. You get this effect if there's is a collision violation, and the very small polygons in the hands and feet make it rather easy for them to penetrate between the much larger vertices in the cloth...then when you get a vertex/vertex collision....boom. It doesn't have to be extremities, though. Anything that is set for collision detection can do this (nipples, jewelry, a prop on the body that's activated as a collider with the figure, etc). If there is a high poly constrained group that interacts with a low poly cloth group (like say a shirt flap being penetrated by a 'rigid' belt), it does the same thing. For that matter, if the cloth interpenetrates itself, it stops dead. If it's the extremities, then Nerd has some freebie low poly mitten and bootie props that attach to the hands and feet to act as collision surfaces (invisible, of course, so they don't interfere). But this can be a pita to find; all it takes is one vertex....

This happens most likely because the cloth is running out of room - this means it is stuck somewhere between two body parts , i.e. between legs, under the shoulder (most likely). This are places where the mesh of the figure can intersect during movement, and the cloth has no place to go. It has nothing to do with service releases.

MungoPark, is there a way of grouping these areas so they still look okay but that poser won't mind the collisions? Love esther

If its not visible, make a cutout in the mesh where the intersections are - this is the only solution I found so far.

u know i think the problem was the toes afterall - in shoes the problem went away. love esther