Is there a way to pause a cloth simulation so that I can shut off and continue later?  I hate it when I have to stop in the middle of a long simulation and lose everything up to that point and have to start over later.

I don't think you can pause, though I've never wanted to explore that option. I just cancel it and recalculate when I have more time.

I just set my screensaver and walk away from it if it's a huge calculation. I haven't tried to pause it either. I have cancelled them before they were finished if I didn't like what it was doing (poke through, et al.), but I usually deleted the simulation and redid it later.

It would be nice if I could pause the simulations like I could pause animation renders in the Queue Manager.   When I render animations, I always choose to render to image files instead of to video so that, when I need to shut off my laptop to take it with me when I go somewhere, I could without losing the any frames already rendered.  That would be a nice feature to add in the next version of Poser.

Quote - It would be nice if I could pause the simulations like I could pause animation renders in the Queue Manager.   When I render animations, I always choose to render to image files instead of to video so that, when I need to shut off my laptop to take it with me when I go somewhere, I could without losing the any frames already rendered.  That would be a nice feature to add in the next version of Poser.

Hmmmm, I render to image files too, and one of the reasons why is just that: so I can stop when I need to. But mostly it's because I tend to add a lot of visual effects in post. It would be nice to be able to pause any function in poser and pick it up later: hair, cloth simulations, animations, or renders.

That's the great thing about LuxRender - you can pause it at any stage. And Pose2Lux makes making Poser scenes Lux-ready ever so easy.

I know, not a solution, but certainly a thought.

Short and sweet answer is no, you can't pause dynamic calculations, hair or cloth.

Quote - Short and sweet answer is no, you can't pause dynamic calculations, hair or cloth.

But you can calculate simulation in few parts.

For example 100 frames simulation frames 1-100.

Calculate 50 frames and press cancel. In frame 50 create morph on cloth.

Create new simulation 50-100, in 50th frame set morph = 1. It is possible that in last frame you should set morph = 0, because cloth can be double folded.

You cannot do it with hair simulation, but you can render pasrts of preview window and later join it in picture editing software.

Once you have calulted dynamics they are retained further in the animation. I remember a battle scene in an arena and I had dine a hair simulation and then a bunch or animation , running and jumping. To my surprise the hair reacted to the figures movement. 

Quote - Once you have calulted dynamics they are retained further in the animation. I remember a battle scene in an arena and I had dine a hair simulation and then a bunch or animation , running and jumping. To my surprise the hair reacted to the figures movement. 

They are written in *.dyn files. Sometimes they do not work, but usualy you need not to recalculate simulation every time when you open scene.