This is a re-post of a message I posed in the "Anastasia" thread that darn near hyjacked it. I thought it ould be more productive out here where it could be seen.

I was responding to a post from LaurieA that addressed the superiority of dynamic clothing over conforming:

As I see it, conforming clothing is a crutch, and a poor one at that. When I first started with Poser, I thought it was great because it was a simple solution that worked. Now that I'm seven years into the hobby, it is the very thing that keeps tripping me up and slowing me down. I wish I had a dime for everytime I've started with a conforming item and either had to take it to the cloth room to clothify some portion of it, export it to make it an obj file, or simply go back and substitute a dynamic piece in its place!

I'm not sure if Smith Micro has made any changes to the cloth room that have caused it to give better results, or if it's simply that it seems like second nature to me now. At any rate, I can usually get what I want in terms of effect far better in the clioth room than out of it.

If you are a modeller... riddle me this: How much extra time/labor is it, once you have made a piece and done all the conforms and morphs to also release a dynamic version of the package? This would really be the next great sales point in my book... market your piece in BOTH formats AT THE SAME TIME! I assume the same textures would work for both pieces... all of the addon textures would work... AND the artist gets the sales from both conforming and dynamic markets. One OBJ now generates TWO income streams, and the add-ons now have more units in the field to drive their sales.

Of course, there may be no OBJ compatability and the change from conforming to dynamic could be a nightmare. I don't know. That's why I'm asking.

If this will work, it sounds like a "bigger return on very little extra work" solution, and the added variety of dynamic clothing available will be the very thing that should spur its increased use.

I wish I could convince all of my more casual colleagues to just watch ONE cloth room tutorial. That was all it took to get me convinced and started. What held me back was the scarcity (until recently) of clothing. I've tried to support Grappo and the few other artists who create dynamic clothing, and there is more and more of it becoming available.

I've checked and there are several recent tutorials posted here that address making dynamic clothing. I'm not sure how good they are or are not, but thay might be of help to someone with the tallent to get to that point.

Sorry to be so long winded, but this is a direction I personally would like to go with the hobby. I even bought Pegasus, hoping I could learn to model with a tool that simple, but even that is proving hard for me to master. I'm keeping after it, and one of these days, I'm going to need the tut's to finish up a piece.

Who will step up to help?

I far prefer dynamic clothing and have for a LONG time.  I suspect, however, that vendors don't create dynamic versions of their cloth props because they don't sell.

Well, I'm not much of a modeler and have never made conforming clothes but from what I've heard is that the way many modelers cut the object up for the grouping you get pieces that will far apart when you run them through the cothroom. Sometimes the verticies aren't lined up to weld. You also need to weld all the seams. Some vendors may feel it's not worth it. Daz studio users can't use dynamic. Many Poser users don't use the clothroom. People will buy the conforming if that's all available and if you want to use it in the cloth room you can convert it.

Personally, I like dynamic better too. I rarely use conforming and most times I convert it.

Well I think the root of the problem is more complicated.   People don't buy dynamic clothes for various reasons:  they can't be bothered, they'd like to but end up frustrated and they're not impressed.  

In the first case it seems more complicated to them  to run simulations especially if there are several and the different clothing items have to interact with each other and scene props as well.   I've wasted some time going back and forth and constraining or changing settings until I could get everything right on 2-3 items only to have Poser crash on me (I'm talking about older versions not Poser Pro 2012 - but not everyone has that).

Secondly, we've all seen the tutorials where we apply the clothing, move slider, apply pose, and run simulation.   Fine but what about tutorials where the figure is interacting with the clothing, lifting it up or having it drape on steps, etc.   There are no tutorials out there for such details except for one I found on SM's site which wraps the clothing around the figure.  Dynamic clothing's biggest selling point would be all this but it's not easy to do without seeing some examples.    I felt so stupid after I saw a tip PhilC gave to someone about getting a desired shape by using helper props.   I don't think that's intuitive at all and more tutorials dealing with these aspects of dynamics would do a lot to drum up interest.

And finally a lot of the dynamic clothes out there are simply not that great.   I think many people find it much easier to model instead of rig for perfect conforming fits so a lot of the freebie stuff is by people just starting out modelling so the clothing itself is plain, usually looks unrealistically thin with no real modeled details such as buttons, seams, etc.   Also, I can't recall seeing many dynamic clothes  that come with as detailed textures as most conforming ones have.   At best they are simple fills and usually the mapping is also not helpful in texturing them.   Again, I would attribute this to the inexperience of the modeller at uvmapping.

I'm not in any way saying that all this applies to ALL dynamic clothes out there.  There are beautiful examples of detailed clothes with great textures but there is also a lot of "tube" mini dresses that anyone could do with a primitive and shrink to fit right within Poser.   There was discussion about these very points a long time ago and hope that slowly modelers would pay more attention to dynamic clothing and not see it as an easy 30-min. job but I'd say we still have a long way to go. 

I'd like to see dynamic clothes where the modeler has already set constrained, soft decorated, rigid decorated, etc groups to act accordingly and maybe gives at least the settings for resistance, friction, density, etc that would be best for that item.  

Hybrid clothes would be great too.   Steve at Poserworld has done this on many occassions and the results are amazing.   I used a conforming dress of his and just ran the simulation for the hip part of the dress to get a good sitting pose. http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2101767&user_id=2482&np&np  I did the same thing here as it was much easier to make the hip dynamic than fiddle with the various posing handles and still not come up with a good sitting pose.  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2187422&user_id=2482&page=2&member&np

I believe some special preparation is needed for hybrid clothing and not all conformers can do this successfully but I fiddle around and see what works and what doesn't.  Not many users would like to do this so it should already be set up for them in a working fashion.

Some more tutorials on how to best pose a dynamic item with your character sitting, lying down, etc might be helpful too instead of just a simple standing pose.  

I love working with dynamic clothing so I'd definitely like to see it reach its full potential.  And if you've read this far, thank you :)

I also use dynamic a lot and with V4WM, have deleted the bones from the hip down on a lot of dresses so far to make them hybrid.

I think a lot of people are afraid of the cloth room like I was until I accidently bought a dynamic outfit I needed for a scene back in the P7-V3 days. So I dove in head first and was overwhelmed like anything new. But the results were far superior to conforming which convinced me I had to figure it out. So I just fiddled around and experimented until I got a better grasp of it and the rest is history.

I have to assume the average poser user reading this is wondering if they always have Vicki, naked in a temple with a sword, why consider learning the cloth room in the first place! :ohmy:

..I'd like to see dynamic clothes where the modeler has already set constrained, soft decorated, rigid decorated, etc groups to act accordingly and maybe gives at least the settings for resistance, friction, density, etc that would be best for that item.  ...

Poserpro 2012 seems to save these settings...when i load a dynamic shirt , start the clothroom and start with point 1 + 2 ...my settings are all in after that .

Not sure how it was in the other versions...i dont use that in Poser 6 or 7.

But thought that is normal or i understand something wrong here.

-greetings-

Thats very beautiful Steve.

So the upper part is working like a conform...no pokes and no draping then ?

I also use this one with pleasure ,Steve

Thanks to model some for Anastasia

Quote -

And finally a lot of the dynamic clothes out there are simply not that great.   I think many people find it much easier to model instead of rig for perfect conforming fits so a lot of the freebie stuff is by people just starting out modelling so the clothing itself is plain, usually looks unrealistically thin with no real modeled details such as buttons, seams, etc.

This is very true, and frustrating for those of us who prefer dynamic cloth props.  But if the vendors find there is no substantive market for dynamic outfits, why should they detail the textures, add buttons, piping, trim, pockets and other features?  Is it worth the effort to do so?

Quote - I'm not in any way saying that all this applies to ALL dynamic clothes out there.  There are beautiful examples of detailed clothes with great textures but there is also a lot of "tube" mini dresses that anyone could do with a primitive and shrink to fit right within Poser.

I have MAYBE three or four dynamic outfits that are nicely textured.  Personally, I'd buy more of them if I could find them.  Again, the market is small and the dearth of product continues . . .

Quote -   Hybrid clothes would be great too.   Steve at Poserworld has done this on many occassions and the results are amazing.   I used a conforming dress of his and just ran the simulation for the hip part of the dress to get a good sitting pose. http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2101767&user_id=2482&np&np  I did the same thing here as it was much easier to make the hip dynamic than fiddle with the various posing handles and still not come up with a good sitting pose.  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2187422&user_id=2482&page=2&member&np

Those are both impressive!  Well done!

So, you started with conforming outfits and hybridized them? That would be an interesting technique to learn.

Quote - I believe some special preparation is needed for hybrid clothing and not all conformers can do this successfully but I fiddle around and see what works and what doesn't.  Not many users would like to do this so it should already be set up for them in a working fashion.

Some more tutorials on how to best pose a dynamic item with your character sitting, lying down, etc might be helpful too instead of just a simple standing pose.  

I love working with dynamic clothing so I'd definitely like to see it reach its full potential.  And if you've read this far, thank you :)

I agree.  The more we can encourage people to use dynamic clothing, the more incentive vendors will have to create high quality dynamic clothing props!

:)

I was especially fond of the attached ;). It's true that I don't always make detailed textures for my dynamic stuff but 1: I don't sell my stuff and 2: I always include decent shaders when I don't make a texture and even when I do.

Laurie

Yes, well it still runs through the cloth room and moves with the figure (the constrained bit i mean) but i doesn't drape, i think what poser is doing is making all the points in a constrained region just follow the figure but have no reaction to any cloth forces, so detail won't drop out, does that make sense, i'm not sure i explained that well ;o)....no poke through though thats the good bit ;o).......Steve

In some cases making a whole part of a garmet "soft-decorated" helps a lot too. It still moves with the figure, but it keeps it shape.

Laurie

For the 5% to make the 95% convert to dynamic is a real uphill batttle. Their (our) entire V4 wardrobes are conforming, almost everything that is sold is conforming, It's not realistic to "change the world" over to dynamic. Vendors who are in it for the money are not going to drop conforming, even if they privately agree with those who prefer dynamic.

I do think vendors could include dynamic versions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but after modeling the item you could pause just before rigging / conforming, save a copy and call that the dynamic version, right? It wouldn't cost any more time or effort to include the dynamic (but I admit I may be missing something).

Anyway, the conforming market is just too big. If you prefer working in the cloth room to get lovely drapes and folds, by all means do so. There's room for dynamic and conforming to co-exist.

Imax,

This is the question I was asking, and so far, have never gotten a modeller to respond to.

Many times when creating 3d models you put together different elements (shapes or pieces if you will) with comforming clothing you can (and may even want to) leave those elements separate. With dynamic you must weld them together. It can be time consuming to weld many element together. In addition depending on your modeling style, you may not eben end up with verticies that are close enough together to weld without deforming the item. That is why if you export a conformer as a obj and then import it again even if you say to weld it together it may still fall apart in the clothroom.

As for the 95:5 I think that is a bit off. If you ask in a thread here you get plenty of people who perfer the dynamic. It is also likely that some of the others would cpnvert if they had better options.  Yes there will always be those who won't like it. Just like there are those who perfer the p4 render engine. And then those who want a make art button and can't be bothered with the extra steps needed to make a quality image. Then of course there are those of us who convert practically everything to dynamic so it all hangs and folds right. Sorry for rambling it's been the week from hell the 2 weeks at work(I know it's only Tuesday but it started on a Wednesday) and I'm still winding down.

PS Naughty areas removed before render just in case :o)

It's not as easy as just taking a conformer and converting it to dynamic. Depending on the item, there's multiple parts to consider. Some stuff can't be welded. It's very much on a case by case basis...lol.

Laurie

So you can't just take a conforming CR2 skirt, turn it into a morphless prop, and use that in the Cloth Room?

Quote - So you can't just take a conforming CR2 skirt, turn it into a morphless prop, and use that in the Cloth Room?

It depends on the skirt....lol.

Laurie

If the skirts a single skin model then sure, just constrain the waistband/belt/detailed areas so they don't deform, if your skirt has more than one layer you'll have problems but you could try constraining the whole thing, nothing to lose but a few minutes of time :o).....Steve

I don't normally constrain everything ;).

Laurie

Quote - I don't normally constrain everything ;).

Laurie

I don't either. But I must admit, I'm intrigued enough by the suggestion now to try.

"I do think vendors could include dynamic versions."

Of course they can often with very little extra work. Then we can both have the cake and eat it.

But remember,

"I like dynamic clothes but only if they have thickness and pockets, beltloops and modelled seams etc."

estherau

I just have the adventure that an extra dynamic cost 2 days more time...

1 day to change mesh and do some simple testings and one day with always simulation crashes.

What can be the reason that the cloth simulation crash often ?

And this is for me the main problem....when i sell a conforming cloth i know where the problems can be and can write it to the readme , add fixes and so on.

The dynamic....when i have from 20 simulations 10 crashes .... cant sell something like this. That will end with refundsg

I give up when i saw that in Poser 7.

Now PoserPro 2012 makes the same problems...that makes no fun.

Karth

Karth,

I've sent you an email that has a great bearing on what you describe.

Steveshanks,

Is each button constrained separately? Or did you constrain the whole strip at once?

Attached Link: Butterfly Dresses - dynamic & conforming versions

Note that I haven't followed any of those suggestions in the linked item, other than the one about making the dynamic version first. Do as I say, not as I do. :)

I have an item that is hybrid/dynamic in my store, probably not allowed to link to it here?

It is for Dawn, but you can download a freebie V4 refit for the dynamic version also from me. :)

Hehe, remove this if it is unallowed 'advertising'. :P

Even if this is an old thread... ;)