Do you use dynamic cloth on a regular basis?

Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Once a year?

Do you consider yourself a dynamic guru? A dynamic intermediate? A dynamic newbie?

I use Dynamic clothes very often.

They simply look more realistic and with the Wind Force tool you can archive incredible beutiful results.

I don't know If I am a Guru, I guess only Dynamic Intermdiate .

My Partner Desiderius I would cal a Guru. Because he go very deep inside the settings from the clothroom and has a great understanding how the settings act and work in the scene.

i use only dynamic clothes since 2008 and most of time i model myself the cloth.

i think to be an advanced user, not a Guru since i am still learning something every time i enter the cloth room.

I'm neither guru nor even advanced user, but I'm certainly an enthusiast: make my own stuff in Blender, or convert the conforming cloth that will work into dynamic. I fully believe that dynamic with or without hybrid capabilities is the wave of the future for natural-looking cloth. But it is truly at its infancy. There is still much to learn and try.

Love the cloth room. Since I learned how to use it I almost never use conforming clothes unless I've converted them.  I guess I might be an intermediate. I can usually get the look what I'm going for but I rely on philc's setting scripts and get the occational simulation failure.

If you are wondering if it is worth the effort to learn, I'd say yes. It took me a while to figure out but when I did I was kicking myself for not trying harder sooner.

I use dynamic cloth a lot, sometimes even for non-"cloth" items, such as forming a terrain over guide props, or making a smoke plume prop seem to drift with the breeze.

     I really don't render that much;  I spend much more time modeling, mapping, and working up materials.  Most of my renders are new item tests or promos.  But if the scene has a flag, belled sleeves, long skirt, cloak, etc., I generally go immediately with dynamic because a conforming piece just ain't gonna get it.

It's hard to want to use it when you have Marv/Clo3d...I tend to just build clothes in marv on the model I'm using (morphed, scaled, zeroed position) and then when I like it I import a posed version of my model as a morph target and let Marv work it out in a few seconds.

Export That back to poser and I load it as a static prop...don't even have to parent it.

That's for stills, of course.  There's a way to do animation (I think) but since animation is beyond me at this point, haven't looked into it.

Ditto what William_the_Bloody said, word for word.  grin

I took a long hiatus from Poser. Prior to the hiatus I would use conforming and dynamic, with conforming for the most part.

Since I've returned to Poser, I've pretty much favoured Dynamic for skirts/dresses.  You get a much better look with the pose.

i only use dynamic cloth when i'm playing around.  still at the basics level.

it's too time consuming yet, for when i'm trying to get illustrations done.

I'm focusing more on dynamic hair lately.

I use dynamic clothing when I need it. Let's face it, unless you've got a really large breasted girl, a bra does not need to be dynamic. Ditto any tight fitting garment.

For flowing skirts, and to get tee shirts and the like to hange normally on both genders, I would not be without dynamic.

You sort of use the tool that solves your problem the fastest with the best results.

And I consider myself and intermediate clothroom user.

Personally, I've been using dynamic more and more.  We need more dynamic clothing choices in the MP.  (hint, hint) 

Quote - Personally, I've been using dynamic more and more.  We need more dynamic clothing choices in the MP.  (hint, hint) 

I agree.

However... (ain't it a bitch how those howevers creep into everything.)

Don't expect me to buy an item JUST because it is dynamic. I've got all the tube tops and pleated skirts for Vickie that she'll ever wear. I've got dynamic undies for her. Even a bathing suit or two. I've got a couple of nighties that'll knock Mike's eyes out!

No business suits. No street clothes.

Yes, I know slutwear sells. I don't buy slutwear. At all. Just don't mistake my not supporting slutwear for my not supporting dynamic clothing.

I've got tees and jeans for Mike that are dynamic, but no business suit.

I guess I need to get busy and make a bunch of texture sets for all these dynamic clothes I've got. Lord knows the makers didn't send much with them.

I use dynamic cloth almost all the time now. I would consider myself an intermediate...certainly no guru...lol.

Laurie

Depends on the pose, and or the story the image is trying to project. Standing characters where the sleeve ends don't show to the camera, not so much.

If the scene is complex with multiple character interactions, I tend to go with Hybrid, so I can adjust the arms and or upper body parts at the last minute. Call me a fiddler that is always tweaking a scene to a fault.

Shirt suit where the skirt is a sperate item then I convert the skirt to dynamic.

Victorian ball gowns with their large petticoats can be an issue with out a helper props under the skirt to mimic petticoats. Those I normally try to pose the character so you are not looking up the sleeve and cheat with conformers. If the character is walking up or down a set of stairs in a floor lenght dress or the like where you want the hem line it to follow the ground plane or stair steps....but those can be a lot of work in dynamic if you need to mimic petticoats also.

The results of dynamic are always superior compared to conformers.

Part of the problem with dynamic in the store is what I call the little black dress syndrone. Simple single layer of cloth. No cuffs, hems, pockets, buttons, or other details. Just a simple form fitting dress of varying lenght and bust exposure.

edited to add: I consider my self more then a newbie, but no expert as I am always trying and learing new tricks. How frequent can be every day for weeks to nothing for weeks as explained above regarding the scene.

I don't think I've used a conforming cloth in about a year. Everything I do is dynamic. Especially since I started making my own clothing (mostly superhero costumes at this point, but I am branching out). I will even convert conforming clothing and use it now because I get a better look. And conforming clothing sometimes has issues when doing animation.

@Coleman: I use regular. I consider myself. Why asking?

Thanks a lot all!

I make comics and want to do an asian/japanese feudal fantasy series. The best flowing clothes available are dynamic.

I've tried using dynamic cloth and clothes with 50/50 success and was curious if it was just me - might be - ha ha.

For a comic I'd have to do a ton of renders and new poses each shot and the idea of using dynamic cloth ( on multiple characters even ) seems daunting. But wondering maybe I've been approaching it wrong and it's not as difficult as I think.

Sounds like folks who responded are pretty happy with dynamics.

Thanks for the tip on Marv/Clo3d... I'll rsearch what that is.

Attached Link: Marvelous Designer Site

it's the Marvelous Designer, follow the link

Not really.  Conforming when it works is quicker and easier to use, even if it doesn't get you the same results.  I tried making a dynamic item myself but I couldn't get the settings around the breasts right (half sleeves are a PITA to work with in both conforming and dynamic).

This is where I plug the chatroom regulars and their ability to make dynamic items.

Almost every time I actually construct a full scene to render, I use dynamic cloth.  I find the workflow off-putting in some ways, requiring that the final poses be at the end of an animation, so I tend not to construct full scenes for rendering as often as I might like.  Usually I just fiddle around.  :lol:

I've become a dynamic cloth fan, I've basically ditched the conforming clothes I was using and I'm now sticking with Dynamic.

I've still got a lot to learn and I'm only breaking the surface of what the CR can do.

The Hair and cloth sims are RADICALLY outdated when a program like Marv can do them in almost real-time, to the effect where you can manipulate cloth in gravity by dragging the mouse with collisions.

I love dynamic cloth too. I think in many cases it looks more natural and fits well to morphed characters and a variety of poses. I think I am probably an intermediate. I would love to see a bit more attention given to the cloth room in future versions of Poser too.

I would love to see the cloth room upgraded. I tend to make more and more dynamic clothes these days, to the point that I hardly even buy any clothing any more. I was given Marvelous Designer recently and am still a beginner with it, so I still do the final draping in Poser's cloth room. I am unlikely to buy dynamic clothing, and quite happy to give away what I make.

I wish someone would give me Marvelous Designer. I can't afford to buy it... :sad:

Yes I do use dynamic cloth quite often.  I recently had to make a cape for Darth Vader for a render I recently did for my gallery.  One feature I would like to see added to the cloth room is to be able to pause a cloth simulation and continue it at a later time.  It would be useful for really long simulations.

Wow! Marvelous Designer looks great and I see Rosemaryr has made some fantastic asian clothes too!

What is your workflow in marv/Clo3d?

You import a poser person already posed, set up the clothing obj then import the new calculated cloth back into Poser? Or do you have to render it all inside Marv/Clo3d?

Can Marvelous Designer import fully textured props... say a Stonemason set... and you just render inside Marv Designer?

It does look very cool!

Attached Link: MD animated cloth in Cinema+VRay

Workflow in conjunction with Poser:

Create a zeroed .obj avatar (figure) that you want to work with (you do have some wiggle room here:  I have put a dress made for V4 onto an M4 figure, and MD easily re-fits the dress and fixes poke-throughs like a breeze!).  I also create an end-posed figure at the same time to be ready for later work.

Create the clothing in MD on the zero figure.  Once it is sewn, I import the end-pose figure as a morph target, and MD will run the simulation in (usually) less than 1 minute.  (It usually takes Poser's cloth room about 1/2 hour to 1 hour for the same sim on my machine!)

Export the final cloth to whatever program I use for rendering (since I do still image only, that's all I need to do.)  

There are some who do animation renders: for some amazing work check this out:
http://www.studio-fabian.de/die_schoene_und_das_biest 

Quoting from the maker of the animation:

"This time layered cloth. All the cloth on the hero were simulated in one go. The result was used as an avatar together with the dummy for the simulation of the dummy cloth, again in one go. Animated in Cinema 4d, rendered with VRay. Here´s the animation." 

Wow! That does sound awesome! Thanks RosemaryR !

Can you import a obj cloth into Marvelous Designer then use Marv D's clothifying to it?

Like there are some Poser dynamic kimonos I'd love to use... can Marv D clothify them or it has to be in Marv D format?

Thanks a lot for all the info!

No, no clothifying of imported .objs just yet, although that has been a request list item for a while now.  But making a kimono inside MD is dead easy, since you can cut and 'sew' from real-world patterns, and a kimono is really just a bunch of rectangles.

I have several chinese style robes in WIP stage and the result is very similar.  the one on the left has kimono style sleeves, for example.

Very beautiful work, RosemaryR !!

I think you have a great talent for it and might be making it sound easy - lotza luv. I really love your designs.

Thanks everyone for all the feedback - think I will give Marvelous Designer a try.

Coleman, she's not making it sound easy.  It's really easy. 

I knew nothing about patterns and sewing when I went into it (and I still don't) but if you've got a functional brain, you can see what they're doing with the default dress that loads.  Plenty of tutorials on their site.

Things are so easy to make I seldom even save anything anymore.

I'll definitely have to try it. Looks fantastic for flowing/draping clothes

I use dynamic clothes all the time, and enjoy making them.

Not only can you render your Marvelous Designer simulation in C4D but you can have several tracs with each item on a separate track for total control.

http://vimeo.com/36876583

1. The animation was done in DAZ4 and brought into C4D.
2. Actor is V4 inside C4D
3. Then the animation was exported to MD with mdd
4. Simulation
5. Export back to C4D again with mdd.
6. In Cinema the two pieces bodice and rope-belt was added as conforming cloth

The bvh animation from Daz studio can coexist with point level animation from MD on different tracs. Thay is, after the Marvelous simultion you can still pose head and body and add hair and so on..

Thanks Kobaltkween and Vintorix.

What is mdd Vintorix?

Thanks

mdd is a file system for carrying Point Level Animation, a system for baking complex scenes and animations into a simple format with an obj file and points that just works. For example, you can also use mdd to send a Poser figure directly to Marvelous Designer from Daz4, with conforming cloth and animation and all.

Genesis, V4, V4 WM, Anastasia, Antonia, all is treated the same way.

So, if I understand this correctly - and please do correct me if I got this wrong - for a number of reasons the animating of MD-developed cloth should optimally be done in MD, not in like Poser. Sounds to me like the mesh type is optimised for MD.

I don't like or make conforming cloth. I guess I would have to try it, but just based on what I see, the workflow for the sort of scene I do most frequently - which involves dynamic cloth, 99.999999% of the time - would involve exporting a posed figure out of Poser and importing into MD, "clothing" it, running the sim, then exiting MD with an exported figure/clothing set to import into Poser for rendering. This seems awkward.

Mesh that I create in Blender to sim in Poser takes, at it's longest, 2.5 - 5 minutes to sim (usually 2 minutes on my stuff). It takes less time than for me to type this response (slow typist/self-editing). And the whole process is contained in Poser. I can't help but wonder what sort of material support the export/import sim export/import process would require. Dunno if I'd tolerate more than one of those "export/import sim export/import re-apply materials" processes before I'd be re-thinking the workflow.

Only because I do very frequent re-positioning of figures wearing dynamic cloth. Which requires a re-sim. No problem: all there. And another forum post written.

For those who makes their own clothing it is a great advantage not to have to go into another program to se the pose. It speed up the workflow 20 fold. Not to mention all the the other advantages to making cloth in MD.

So, Marvelous is not so much use for the ordinary Poser user. That said, anyone who tries it out is instantly captivated and pro primo is a user no longer.

Very dangerous.

I tried it out.  I hated it with a passion.  It did stuff that told me it was really inefficiently coded, and I found it almost impossible to use.   It's nice that it worked so well for you and others.  To be very honest I've seen some consistent issues with the work it produces that I'd rather avoid if I could, and I'd rather customize the topology more than it allows.  But then, I found Blender way easier to learn than Max, Wings, or Hexagon.  A chacun son gout. 

edited to say: I am very serious about to each their own, not being at all snide.  I do think it's great that it works well for others.  Maybe one day it will work well for me.  So far though, not at all what I wanted it to be.

Dynamic at least 10 to 1, so much less problem whe using seated or reclining poses with skirts.  No expert, but consider myself a beginner in the cloth room.  After five years.  Lots to learn there.

D.

kobalt:  MD has been in an almost constant state of growth since it's release.  Though, no real advancements on topology customization (It's really not "What it does" though.)

I imagine topological detail work would be done in a traditional modeling program in your preferred manner. 

Precisely so. In Marvelous you only get the concept (i e the falls and the folds). But it is a great help already from the beginning to know what the finished work will look like. How often have you not started something with only a vague idea what's it gonna look like be only after several days of work get disappointed? MD gives you a bona fide guaranty that all your toil will not be in vain.

And BTW it is not easier to make Dynamic cloth. Not if you want thickness and pockets, beltloops and modelled seams etc etc. Unfortunatly there are no easy ways and no free lunch either.

Is it fairly easy to go from MD to Poser for rendering?  And how about saving the clothing created in the runtime?  I plan to call in sick tomorrow and may spend the day with the demo.  Looks interesting.

As I said you usually do not use the obj from Marvelous directly, but as a starting point and template for your modeling efforts. That is no different from 3DCoat, ZBrush, Mudbox, Sculptris and a host of other modern 3D tools. They can not be used directly either. By all means, if you only want something for your personal renders just go ahead, export an obj and import in Poser. You need to set the texture manually though but at least the UV map is done and ready from the box.

When I export from MD back to poser, whatever colors/maps I've set up in MD loads up in Poser without having to manually change anything.

Sorry William you are right.  Haven't done that for ages..!

MD clothes work great in Poser's cloth room too. I would only retopo them if i would need to make them conforming. The cloth is created from seemingly irregular triangles, which behave great in the cloth simulation. The simulator from MD is much faster than Poser's though, so Poser's cloth sim is not my favorite way to go with MD cloth.

The software is dead easy to use, IMHO. There is a fully functional 30-day demo, so everyone can see if the software works for him/her. You can test it with a lot of demo clothes from their website. They have a lot of free clothes there which can easily fitted to any figure within MD.

How much does it cost?

Laurie