Oh.  You think he looks okay?  I thought he was terrible. 

He has had a lot of work done on him.  And he might need a new head in order to get the mouth to open, there's probably some very strange geometry in there.

But I liked the idea enough to keep working on him, and he is my first humanoid type model.  Prior to this I'd almost finished a bat (which was stolen) and I'd done dumpy spheroidal robots.  So this was my first real biped.

UVDan, you've done rigging haven't you, what did you use to do that in?

No rigging for me yet.

Oh sorry, I thought you had.  Your images looked as if you had.

okay but I know for sure you've made clothes for your figures - how did you do that?

Did you make them in Wings?  (Oooo - please say you did, I can't model in anything else. insert trepidacious smilie here)

Fran the only clothes I have made have been armored chest plates and hats.  Nothing that needed rigging.

Oh no.  You have to rig clothes as well as the figure?

Darn.

Hey, don't quote me on that.  I do not think dynamic clothing has to be rigged.

Er.... dynamic clothing???

I've heard the term but I don't really understand what it would involve to model that/them.

Hey, that's real nice.   But the clothing does not have to be rigged or grouped right?

The cloth does not have to be rigged. The cloth editor in Poser allows you to designate the properties of cloth vertices either singerly or in groups as to their relationship to the figure. Similar to collision detection plugins in high end 3D modelers. As the animation progresses the editor then uses those cloth vertice's to interact in relationship with the solid figure or object.

PS: This dress was modeled in Rhino to fit the Poser figure. It was then imported to Poser and arranged. Both the figure and dress were brought into the cloth editor.

A high poly count helps in defining how well the cloth reactes with the solid object but also slows the computer down because it cherns more vertices in the process.

Thanks.

Right I see.

I think...

So I can rig my character, then animate him as is...

Then later if I want to I can create clothes for him, say using the unrigged version, save those clothes separately... and then (perhaps at another time again) import the rigged character, import the clothes, put them onto him and then animate the clothed version???

Yes?

No?

Yes! ;D

I found it easier to animate the figure first otherwise the cloth will get in your visual way as you attempt to animate. Then go back to the first frame and apply the clothing and take the whole thing to the cloth editor and select the vertices that will attach themselves to the figure (otherwise the dress may fall to the floor by the end of the animation) and tell the editor not to permit cloth collision with the figure and specify how the cloth will interact such as silk, cotton and so forth on the object. It's been a while and these are the bits I remember.

To be clear...animate the figure first. Make it go through all the motions you want. The character can go through different motions on separate takes then conbined to create a larger animation. Once you finish animating the figure you then introduce the cloth object in the first frame of the animation. Then take both the figure and the cloth to the cloth editor and dessignate your vertices as needed. Depending on the cloth outfit some vertices may have to be attached to the figure at certain locations like the shoulders, waist and so forth. Other parts of the cloth may be just belt buckles, pockets, buttons, belt loops and so forth these may be dissignated as designer vertices and are attached to the cloth object. You can also use the spinners to tell the editor just how you want the cloth to flow and react. It's a little involved but quite rewarding when you can get it to do what you want. As an aside, the cloth can be exported during any phase of the animation in the particular pose so if you're doing a still the whole thing can be exported in that pose.

That's very interesting, thank you Quest.

I'll make a note of that.