HI,
Just returned to Poser after many year absence. Last time I used it was in the days b4 dynamic clothing.
The question I have is: Is there some poses that the dynamic feature is unable to adapt to? The reason I ask is because I have been succesful with using the cloth room and having the clothify dynamics behave as they should with certain poses, but on other poses(sitting poses for example) I get an error that says something to the effect "rendering simulation failed at frame 0" or something to that effect. Are there limits on the "bend-ability" of the dynamic clothes(a skirt for example)? If so, what are the general guidelines as to what will or will not work?

TIA to all of you for entertaining my elementary questions.

Message edited on: 05/26/2005 21:35

With sitting poses, and especially with long full dresses, it's easy to have faces bunch up and intersect with other faces. Once things start to bunch up, calculations become slow if not impossible. For starters, you might try to check the "Cloth self collision" setting when you set up the simulation. If your final result is a still image, an alternative is to begin the simulation with the chair moved away from the dress, and the figure in its default position. Pose the figure and the chair in their final pose and position in a later frame, making sure that you have enough frames in your simulation to cover the entire range. As the chair moves toward the figure and into its final position, it will push, or displace the skirt forward toward the legs, much as the arms do when a woman sits down in a skirt. If you're doing an animation, the arms could control the skirt much as they would "in real life." Does that make sense?

Thanks DC. Yes. I think it does make sense. One thing you said raises another question for me. I am using the dynamic clothing in a still image--not an animation. Therefore, I set the end frame to 2...instead of 30. I wanted to do this so I would have to render only 2 frames and not the full 30. Does it make a difference how many frames there are between the first frame(zero pose) and the final frame(end result)? In my case, there was only one frame between these 2 points.

Does it make a difference how many frames there are between the first frame(zero pose) and the final frame(end result)? In my case, there was only one frame between these 2 points. Actually, it's better to allow more room for the calculations if the dress is really full. It gives the cloth more leeway in settling itself, and it falls more naturally.

Yes, the number of frames makes a big difference. The cloth is an approximation to a physical situation. Generally, people don't take 1/30second to go from standing to sitting. Better to make it a realistic time (or even longer, because simulations generally don't like fast-moving objects).

Ah-ha! Thanks to you both for the information. Have to go now. I hear the cloth room calling my name. Thanks again