Are there any tutorials or forums or discussion threads which tell how to combine Dynamic Cloth and Walk Designer in Poser 6 (Koji Figure) ? I am getting terrible results (please see attached render) I am cross posting this to Content Paradise forum also. Appreciate any helpful comments you may be able to provide.

Looks to me like you have the ol' collision ooopsie. Look at Koji's walk cycle nude, and pay particular attention to the armpits and groin/thigh area. Poser characters have no collision check on themselves, and at places where there are serious creases/joint actions, the actual polygons interpenetrate. Usually this isn't noticeable, as it happens in an area you don't or can't see. The problem is that dyn cloth reacts very badly to collision violations of this kind. Sometimes it will simply stop the simulation, and the cloth prop reverts to its undraped zero state; other times the cloth will 'slip' between the vertices and get 'stuck' on the wrong side of the collision plane, with the results you see above. The first fix attempt is to adjust the cloth offset value slightly; this 'floats' the cloth above the figure, to prevent both this, and getting stuck in an eternal collision detection loop. You can also adjust the angle of the joint slightly, to see if there is a sweet spot that looks good without causing the issue (the graph editor is good for this. If it's that the shoulders are a degree to two folded inward too much, you can globally select the offending value for an entire animation cycle and adjust it in). It's also a good idea to keep a close eye on the fingers and toes. All those small polygons can slip right through the space between vertices, collide, and a similar mess (this one pops up more often with skirts and capes). Nerd made some freebie low poly props for the hands and feet to use in cloth collision; they are available at his site.

thank you

Oh yuck. I think my Poser 6 has a memory issue. When I try to re-do an unsatisfactory Cloth Simulation in the same scene, it just doesn't want to know about things. Happens even after I un-clothify and delete simulation.

I am beginning to think it's all rather dodgey, this business of DC and WD. update: dunno whether to laugh or cry - the sub-culture skirt by PoserDiva falls down to his ankles duing the simluation, and I KNOW the creator mentions this in the read me and a fix. It's just so....

Message edited on: 01/23/2006 07:18

are you draping from zero pose? Prob yes but doen'st hurt to ask :) ALso try turning off cloth self collison ( along with the suggestions by Dale.

Yep, zero pose. Oh, cloth collision is on. Okay... I think there is probably also a Poser 6 memory leak somewhere along the way, during what I've been doing earlier. ....... In one fit of bad temper tantrum, I threw all to the wind and applied the Walk Designer Simulation; don't care what happens to the Dynamic Cloth. Hey, interesting. The DCs conform to the figure in frame 1. Now I notice a bad cross-talk problem with my successful DC application results. Koji Spikey Hair cross-talking with the DC shirt. Ack ! Give up for now.... Going to bed. It's late on my side of the planet. Thanks for your response.

Are you starting the walk cycle at frame 1? If so, then draping from zero pose will cause problems. If you start the walk cycle at, say, frame 30 (with the figure zeroed at frame 1) then this sort of problem shouldn't occur ... unless it's due to something else entirely.

You might want to try Cloth Room Helper by Kamilche. It drapes the cloth one frame at a time and converts them into a morphing cloth. Kamilche was having the same problems as you, and many others who have tried to animate simple things like a walk with dynamic cloth. She came up with a brillant solution! Cloth Room Helper is a free download over at PhilC's. =D

If you want to do the single drape/MT yourself, all you need to do is when the Cloth Room is done draping, export it as an OBJ, reimport as a morph target. This is a time saver in some ways. You can stop at whatever frame you want. Walk away, and come back later to create the rest of the objs.

The Cloth Room is cool, it's way too slow imho. So I tend to render is steps. Plus, doing it that way will prevent the bunch-up that happens if you have one bad pose (where something accidently intersects something else), and not screw up the entire animation.

Good luck!

bB

Message edited on: 01/23/2006 15:50

Thanks for the heads-up BB ... I'm a major dynamic cloth fan but didn't know about Kamlinche's app. Looking forward to checking it out tonight.

Good Morning, my time my planet-side ! Great responses - all helpful suggestions. Going to give it another go.

Update: Notes of findings: Successful only with static poser. Still unable to repeat one successful attempt at animating the dynamic cloth with a walking figure. 1. Zero figure. Switch off IK. 2. Bring in Poser-Diva Skirt (my working example - it already has Dynamics calculated and is already parented to figure's hips) 3. Enter Cloth Room Frame 1 = zero pose of figure Frame 30 = the pose which I want the figure to have. 4. Follow instructions given by creator of the Dynamic Cloth. 5. Works ! Now, to try and repeat the one and only sucessful attempt I had at making the dynamic cloth follow the figure in an animation ! eFrontier is the death of me with its Poser 6 Cloth Room and Walk Designer. My death certificate bears the cause of death as apoplexy due to frustration during Poser 6 usage. I am now official un-Dead.

Have you tried the single pose drape for each frame of animation yet? bB

Ah yes, I did. It takes a long time to process on my machine ! It is an alternative, but it is such a klunky way of going about what Poser6 ought to be doing right, for the money I paid. Right now, I am forming the conclusion that it really is a poser 6 memory issue. It seems to get confused when I used both Walk Designer AND Cloth Simulation on the figure. I get different results even when I repeat the steps in a fresh scene. I did this just to be sure I understand the workflow order, but the outcomes are different most of the time. The most regular result I seem to be getting is that of the cloth falling down to the ankles. Grrrr grrrr grrrr.

Message edited on: 01/26/2006 08:39

I hear you. The Cloth Room rusn very slow on my machine, so slow that I avoid it whenever possible. I get bizarre results sometimes too, things like cloth tilting to the left, falling off shoulders or hip, and unwrapping clothing and collars folded like kimonos. I hope there will be improvements to the cloth room too. It's a such a cool thing. bB