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eg large areas such as a skirt, leave as Quads. but bend areas such as elbows have as Tri'd to allow more bend in the sim.

sounds like a good strategy.  just going by photos, i was thinking about something sort of the opposite of that myself. most photos of short-sleeved shirts have less crumpling than my quad image and way less than my tri one.  on the other hand, most photos i've seen of long dresses and trains have a lot of crumpling and bending.  so i think i'd  want even more loop cuts at the areas i want to bend in one direction but not really another,  like shoulders and elbows.  but less directional topology where the fabric was less structured and fitted.  but that's just my own thinking, and i'd bet your way would get realistic results, too.

LaurieA - oh, i know you were just testing and experimenting.  i just thought i'd mention the issue for general discussion purposes, not to be pointed.  from being a bagginsbill follower, i know at some point people will come to this thread for reference, so i thought it worth mentioning.

i wonder if there's a way to make a suggestion to Smith Micro about adding initial tension as a factor?  it already seems to be part of the sim, since you can achieve it through scaling.

TrekkieGrrrl - what kind of pleats do you mean?   Fugazi1965's advice on flat box and knife pleats earlier in the thread helped me a lot in terms of figuring out how to make them.  i haven't actually tried using them yet.  i've never tried to make accordion, wrinkled, or projecting pleats, though my gathering experiment came out pretty well. do you have any examples?