Hi,
I'm using the jolly ponytail and need some pointers on how to
maximise it's swing when my characters head moves from side to side.
Do I adjust root stifness,falloff,air damping,gravity,spring strength,spring damping,bend resistance or what.
The poser 6 reference manual doesn't explain the hair dynamics controls very well.
Has anyone any experience in using and understanding strand hair and it's dynamics?
Thanks.

I don't own the Jolly ponytail, but I have played with dynamic hair a lot. Reducing air damping and spring damping will make the hair move more. Reducing gravity might help, too. It will make the hair float more. You can even make it float up, as if underwater. Increasing the gravity will make the hair "heavier." You can make it look like it's wet if you turn the gravity up enough.

Experiment and see! (You might want to temporarily reduce the number of strands in the hair, so the sim runs faster. You can raise once you find the settings you like.)

In relation to our ponytail style, you only need to run the simulation on the tail goup. I would not recomend reducing the verts per hair, as this can destroy styling on the hair group. Currently the hair is setup for a general case senario. With any dynamic system, you have got to experiment to achive the visual effect you want for the particular animation. Make use of the show populated checkbox, turn this Off for running the simulations and On for rendering. Adjust one parameter at a time, and then test the simulation. Reducing air damping and spring damping, makes the swinging last longer. Incresing these values will bring the hair to a stop quicker. Adusting the Root Stiffness Falloff to a lower value will make the end of the hair move more. This value scales the effect of the simulation from root to tip, the root always being 100% stiff - not moving. Lowering the bend resistance will mean that a lower force will start bending the hair strands (less violent animation). When animating try to avoid bringing the figure to a quick dead stop, as this is an unnatural motion, always try to give some follow through. Playing with the Dynamics Weight of the hair group in the Parameters window, is also a good and trouble free way of scaling the dynamic effect. A good trick is to animate this value, essentially its a way of controling the dynamics and bringing it back to its rest position when you want it to. Hope this helps. Elliot