Hey, I finally got a Dual 2GHz Mac G5, so I can actually use dynamic cloth now. The clothing that comes with Poser seems to work fine, but I was trying to make some of my own and I ran into problems. Everything goes fine until I calculate the simulation -- it calculates the draping and then starts the calculation. However, it only calculates the first few frames (about to frame 11) and then it just ends the calculation. I have set the calculation for the entire length of the animation, so that's not the problem. Like I said, it will calculate the entire animation with the premade items. If anyone knows why this is happening, I'd like to know -- also, if you have any tips or things I should watch out for, that would be great as well. Thanks!

A screen shot or render at frame 11 might help ... one thing I suspect is that the clothing is getting bunched up, either intersecting with itself or with the character.

It could be -- there are a lot of folds in the object. I didn't save the file so it would take me a while to come up with an image, but it does kind of bunch up. Is there a way to prevent this? Nothing in the mesh intersects itself or the figure, by the way; just a lot of folds...

One thing you can try is checking the "Cloth Self-Collision" option in the Simulation Settings dialog. The calculations may take longer, but it might save it from crashing.

Thanks for the tip, but I tried that. It doesn't crash, it just stops calculating. The cloth will run up to the frame where it stopped calculating. I think it does have something to do with the complexity of the mesh -- I tried making a simpler mesh and it ran fine. I guess I'll just have to scale back my ambitions!

THat would have been my second guess. 8-)

Does your mesh have any very small or long/thin triangles? That can cause problems.

Sorry about the delay in responding -- was away from my computer for the weekend. The answer to that would be yes -- I didn't realize that could cause problems. I'll look out for that in the future. Thanks!