hi Robynsveil and everyone else,

I'm back, and this thread has exploded a bit, so may posts, so many questions, and only a few answered. And I'm only halfway reading right now. As I promised in my first post (halfway page 1) I'm happy to help you out as far as I can, but I need some time to catch up, and to figure out a reasonable way to act on all of this without writing the "easy to read manual" (@magnusgreel, Dec-6 4:18am) in one lengthy post. But as I promised in that same post a "tutorial" (I guess it will be tens of pages) will find its way. Why do paying day-jobs take all day? On top of that, just answering those questions will not make a consistent story, it will be rather fragmented. While most of you are interested in some backgrounds, the why's behind the parameters, their names, scales, behaviour and effects. The link just posted by BionicRooster is a good start, by the way.

JohnPf asked for images, results. That might be a way to take off. I'll give you some, and talk you through the making and all my considerations, and try to address many existing questions on the fly. Feel free to add more.

English is not my native language, and I'm a bad typer. So, it might be my bad explanation (likely), just a wrong wording or typing (very likely) but it's not you. And I'm not the ultimate guru on dynamics either, but I do have a strong background in simulation, I do understand cloth, and all I have to do is figure out what the SM guys/girls made out of it in Poser. I did play with Poser from version 1 on, but just some time ago I started to look more closely in order to make something out of it.

So here is one image. It's not perfect yet, it still has some quirks around the waist and I forgot to check the shoes for collision. The image is one frame from a 18 second animation sequence, having Mannequin (=Vicky derivative, from DAZ) dancing wild in a gown, on (existing) music. In the end I'll have the full 3:40 piece covered, but not this year. The gown is Benefit Gala Dress (http://www.runtimedna.com/Benefit-Gala-for-V4.html), turned from conforming into dynamic and retextured. 

Note that the animation was intended (and still is) part of a lighting study, on doing softboxes and similar reallife photostudio tools in Poser. But about all the problems you described in this thread occurred, and I won over (most of) them by know. I'm happy to share. Tomorrow, as it's midnight over here. Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I thought you might enjoy some cheering up right now.

Just a tip for all of you who might suffer a dip from Cloth Room. Look at some of Rianeli's pictures on this site, and remake them entirely into Poser, as exact as possible. Just Pose, Camera and (especially!) Light. Nothing else. No clothes at all. In case you thought lighting was simple and clothing difficult. Then try Fand's images, just adding some decor and a prop, still no clothes. Then cloth room feels like a relief. It works for me. 

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Usually I'm wrong. But to be effective and efficient, I don't need to be correct or accurate.

visit www.aRtBeeWeb.nl (works) or Missing Manuals (tutorials & reviews) - both need an update though