I have Poser 6 and I'd like to start using dynamic clothing. I've shyed away from it mainly because I can't seem to figure out when to do it in (what passes for )my workflow...

Generally, (if I don't have a plan which is 90% of the time), I pick a figure, morph the face and or body. By then, I'm starting to get an idea about "who" the character is. I add a texture, then with the character further along in its development, I can select the right hair for them. This is also where I usually add clothing. If an awareness of the character give me an idea of what they would be doing, I pose them, if not I play around with many poses until one strikes a chord. Then I fill in the environment adding props etc.

Where do I fit the clothroom into this scenario? Where do you fit the clothroom into your workflow?

For me what I do is:

Pick the figure IE: V3
Add the morph
Add the clothing
Add the clothing texture
Fit the clothing to the morphed figure

If I'm using regular clothing, after that I do the following:

Add hair
Pose the figure
Adjust facial expression
Add lights
Render

If I decided to use Dynamic clothing, after I fit the clothing to the figure, I do the following:

Move to frame 15
Pose the figure
Move back to frame 1
Go to Cloth room
Start a new simulation
Clothify the clothing
Pick Colide against (unless the hands, feet, head come into play, I usually check "Ignore" for those")
Then I run the simulation

After the simulation is run, I go back to the Pose room and do the following:

On the last frame (30), I add the hair
Then I render the image on the last frame

This is the tutorial I learned from:
http://www.poserfashion.net/howvic3dress1.htm

4blueyes just posted an easy tut the other day:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2665209

PhilC has a video:
http://www.philc.net/CC_sampleVideo.htm

And Dr. Geep has one at his site:
http://drgeep.com/TUT/cr/CR.htm

If I know I'm gonna be using dynamics... Before I start working on a pose I move to frame 20. I do all the posing work there. When I start fitting the dynamic clothing (on frame 1) if it doesn't quite fit right due to a morphed character or something I also make adjustments to the figure in frame 1. It stays at default pose, but I might shrink it a little, dial down some of the body morphs, etc. When I run the dynamic sim, I run it out to frame 30. That give me ten frames of settling around the pose I picked. If the pose is an action pose I might pick frame 20 for my final render. For less actiony, more static poses I'll stop on whatever frame looks nice.

what purpose does using the different frames make acadia....sounds like a good idea

billy

The frames before the pose allow the clothing to get into position; after the pose, it allows the clothing to settle down after it's moved. You don't have to render the final frame, by the way. Step through your animation and pick the one you like best, but make sure your lights and camera aren't animated. If you adjusted them at the last frame, they'll move about during the animation / simulation. I often start my scene with the character wearing conforming clothes, until I'm sure of the pose, and then switch to dynamic. It's easy to recalculate the simulation if you change your mind about the pose, but posing is difficult when the clothes stay put. ;)

Good point, Bob.  And it goes double for dynamic hair.  The last frame is NEVER the best one.  Sometimes the shorter hairs, instead of settling down at the end, wiggle as if they're itching for something to collide with, or are bouncing off each other.  Probably the latter, because you sometimes get a weird wave pattern.

John

Generally speaking you need to give your entire finished scene a lot more though than if you were using conforming clothing.

I tend to sort out first what my final pose and scene will look like and work from that.

I'll add the character morphs at frame 5, final pose at about frame 25 and 5 more for all the other stuff said already.

One thing I would say is "DON'T" try and do short cuts with it because it can lead to a world of pain, you might try looking in the tutes section for one on dynamics by HMann, really useful as a starting point.

Thanks everyone, this has been a great help! Guess part of my problem is I'm working with a conforming outfit and decided at the last moment to use dynamics on the skirt. That part went okay, it's the part about adding the props that threw me.

Thanks again!

What I did when I first started to work with dynamic clothing was to make myself a check list of the order I needed to do things in.  I'm a creature of habit and hate change, so changing the order I did things in was a bit frustrating to me but I found a check list helped me with that.  Now I have 2 ways of doing things, one when I'm using dynamic clothing, and another when using conforming clothing.

One thing I found very important when working with dynamic clothing was to apply the hair after doing the simulation because often the hair can get in the way.

For the most part working with dynamic clothing is pretty easy.  Occasionally something happens that throws you for a loop like a dress falling off or not folding properly. It's just a matter of being able to figure out what is causing that.  I can't trouble shoot stuff like that yet, but I ask here and always find that there is someone who is willing to share their knowledge and help me get things sorted out.

I think you'll come to really love dynamic clothing a great deal!

If you have Poser 6, you can even use the Morphing Fantasy Dress in the cloth room and make the skirt dynamic.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2517340&page=1

Thanks Acadia.

I'm actually starting my little adventure with the skirt to the conforming Sweet Pea dress for A3. It draped fairly well (-we've got a little draping going on in her lap that I'm not to sure about), now I just need to reset the collisions to collide against the swing she's sitting in.