I decided to wander into the cloth room and see what the party is like over there.  I read a couple of the tutorials here on renderosity and figured I'd just try and see what happens.  

I have a conforming skirt that I thought I would try and 'clothify'.  It sure would look better in this laying down pose if it draped instead of stood up in the air.

Anyway so now I am at the part of calculating the simulation.  

Is that the final step?

Right now in the 'Dynamics Status' it says:  Draping... 2005 and some other randomly changing numbers.  

What do those numbers represent?  The bar is completely full as it would be if a render was all the way finished.  But it doesn't show any sign of stopping soon.  Just keeps going and going.

I only did this with 9 frames because I wanted to just see what happened.  Last night I tried with 30 frames and after an hour or so of this same Dynamic Status just going up and up and never giving me a clue what was going on or when it would finish I cancelled it.  

I realize asking how long it usually takes is not going to give me much info since op systems and ram are all different.  But I'm curious for SOME input so:  How long does this part usually take?

What do those numbers mean?  Are they just mystery numbers meant to keep you guessing like the 'recalculating splines' message in The Sims?

Without a screen cap, I'm not going to be able to tell you what's going on...

That said, most conforming items don't play well in the cloth room. It is designed for items specifically made for cloth simulation.

SOMETIMES you can get away with running the sim on a skirt or pantleg, but more ofthen than not it falls apart.

To sucessfully use a conforming item, at the very least, you need to first export the item, weld all the seams, then import it as a prop.

Most of the time, you also have to set a band of constrained poits at the top so it won't fall off the character. Also, any decorations, like pockets and belt loops have to be soft decorated so they will not fall off in the simulation.

Any help?

Yes that is helpful.  It means cancel now lol.

The numbers are currently at Draping 5143.  It's been going for a while now.  Nothing has changed on the screen but the numbers.

Is it typical for the draping process to take over an hour?  If so I'm not going to bother with it.  If not I may invest in some dynamic clothing.

I don't use draping a lot, so not the person the ask about this.

If you want to practice with dynamic before making an investment, try a few of the pieces in free stuff. They'll give you an idea of how it works.

Give this one a try: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=55838

Adam makes good stuff.

the first set of numbers is the frame number, the second set to the right is a sort of difficulty rating, if it goes above 30, you have a problem.

if it is a dress you are clothifying, it will only work if the dress has no real bones below the hip, ghost bones are fine( ie left front/rightfront) but if you have thigh bones etc, it won't work. then you would have to import the .obj, if it is not fully welded it will likely fall apart during the sim.

if the dress only has bones down to the hip, you can clothify just the hip.

if the outfit is double sided, you can basically forget it.

Thanks, 3anson... I knew there were severe limitations, but was not sure what they were. 

PhilC has a tutorial here on how to make a conforming clothing item dynamic:

http://www.philc.net/tutorial4.php

It doesn't work for everything.  Depends on how it was modeled. 

If you are new to dynamic clothes, start by using clothing that was designed to be dynamic.  There's plenty available for free.

Looks like you have a collision on the prop...lol. If you do, the cloth will suck to it like a magnet if it's close enough...lol. Remove the prop from the collisions ;). All you need it to collide with is the stuff it's directly touching: the figure, the floor, other clothes, etc.

Laurie