OK, I give up. Conforming clothes have me completely bafffled. Sometimes they work just like they should, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it looks like it depends on the model, sometimes it seems just arbitrary. Sometimes copying the morph values from the figure to the clothing helps, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it makes it worse. If there is some kind of pattern to it, I can't seem to find it.

Even 3d-Age who make new outfits on a regular basis always includes this caveat in their ReadMe files: "Morphs auto fit in poser, but sometime it not auto conform,if this happen please delete and load again." I'm not quite sure what that even means, but it sounds like they don't exactly know what's going on either.

So the immediate question is why do conforming clothes conform sometimes and not others? The broader question is what goes on with conforming clothes? When you conform an item to a figure, what's happening with the clothing item?

Finally, just to finish off this issue, what's up with that little check box on the Body actor that says "Include morphs when conforming"? I've never checked it, but it looks like the kind of thing that you would always want checked.

The checkbox means that if a clothing figure has morphs available that correspond to the "human" figure, you want the values set the same as you have the human figure set. Yet, I would think that should be on by default too.

Different clothes behave differently because different vendors use varying approaches. The same clothing can behave inconsistently depending on what's going on at a given time in your workflow (and probably, bugs).

I found it best to load a figure, and all conformers, then load the next figure and so on.

Keep in mind also that conforming clothing are often character specific. You can use Wardrobe Wizard to help get around this currently but even so, if the clothing is built for a particular character, it will work best with that character.

In my tests I'm using only V4.2 and characters based on her. I'm only using one character and one piece of clothing. I'm also starting with a new scene every time  avoid any complications. This is as basic as I can get it.

i feel your pain elzagna, i have a few conforming outfits that seem to work with v4/4.2 ++ no matter which character morph i use on her, however many others that are just wrong. Thats why i tend to stick with dynamic nowadays, the same outfit can fit any range of extreme morphed characters just by a bit of scaling fiddling.

Character morphs may not even be present in conforming clothing especially if the morph is originally custom.  Morphing clothes is an excellent app for importing morphs not present in the clothing but available in the character.  Extreme cases may stretch and alter the mesh, but in most, the clothing will conform without any problems. 

I agree hborre, but it's time for the vendors or the creators to make the step of  dynamics clothes.

Results ?

Less work, nothing to rig, no morphs to add.

More realistic.

Here are the results of some more testing I did today.

I loaded V4 and then injected all the morphs (INJ Morphs++). Then I loaded and conformed 3d-Age's SexyTop VI to Vickie. I chose this outfit because it was a fairly recent product from a well established vendor and it had few body parts. Once I had that set up, I started injecting the body morphs from each of my models one at a time, and checked to see if the outfit conformed properly or not. I would then Alt-Z to back out and then go to the next model.

The outfit conformed to some of the models but not others. When it didn't conform the problem was often because the model was using a morph that the outfit didn't have. This is a known problem and there are Python scripts to deal with that. Sometimes, however the outfit didn't conform even when it had a matching morph. This happened when the morph in the model was sert to a negative number. In that case the outfit tried to conform but seemed to crash into the models chest.

That seemed to be consistent with all of 3d-Age's outfits.

Armed with that information I began to check out the outfits by other vendors, but dear Lord, there is absolutely no consistency to how this stuff is built. What a mess! I'll try to pick this up tomorrow.

Quote - I agree hborre, but it's time for the vendors or the creators to make the step of  dynamics clothes.

Results ?

Less work, nothing to rig, no morphs to add.

More realistic.

Might be more realistic, but if you're doing sequential art, as I do sometimes, conforming clothes is just more practical.

Quote - I agree hborre, but it's time for the vendors or the creators to make the step of  dynamics clothes.

Results ?

Less work, nothing to rig, no morphs to add.

More realistic.

1.  Too many vendors aren't interested in changing their workflow.

1.  Too many users are aggressively uninterested in moving beyond "Load, Conform, Make Art"

It is what it is.

My experience with conforming clothes is this: many don't look very good with some poses (example: sitting pose in long dress), and the included morphs are quite limited. They're kinda like real clothes. There are some extra hooks on the back of a bra to give you some room to adjust things. But the adjustments are limited. You won't can't should'nt try to sqeeze a 42FF into a 34B. Even if you somehow succeed, it won't look right, and your model will be pissed at you for trying.

My solution:

If I must use a custom body morph, I will turn to dynamic clothing first. If what I want isn't available in dynamic, I'll use Morphing Clothes to add the morphs. If the result isn't acceptable, then I give up on the custom body morph and use the standard full body morphs, which are often included in the clothing.

I mean, honestly, if the model is clothed, you won't see very much of the custom morphs anyway. The exception is if the model is wearing skimpy clothing and/or has very big or very small breasts. In those cases, I find it best to use one of the many magnet sets (such as VaVoom at RDNA)  plus some work with Poser's morph brush to adjust both the figure and the clothing.

That said, dynamic clothing really does solve a lot of problems in this regard.

maybe we should have a "show us your dynamic vs conforming " thread. Pick say 2 or 3 poses, static, sitting, action eg and 2 or 3 styles of dress, short, long, flowing etc then post your experiences (ie time taken to conform vs sim)  and render results, would be rather interesting don't you think....

Quote - Here are the results of some more testing I did today.

I loaded V4 and then injected all the morphs (INJ Morphs++). Then I loaded and conformed 3d-Age's SexyTop VI to Vickie. I chose this outfit because it was a fairly recent product from a well established vendor and it had few body parts. Once I had that set up, I started injecting the body morphs from each of my models one at a time, and checked to see if the outfit conformed properly or not. I would then Alt-Z to back out and then go to the next model.

The outfit conformed to some of the models but not others. When it didn't conform the problem was often because the model was using a morph that the outfit didn't have. This is a known problem and there are Python scripts to deal with that. Sometimes, however the outfit didn't conform even when it had a matching morph. This happened when the morph in the model was sert to a negative number. In that case the outfit tried to conform but seemed to crash into the models chest.

That seemed to be consistent with all of 3d-Age's outfits.

Armed with that information I began to check out the outfits by other vendors, but dear Lord, there is absolutely no consistency to how this stuff is built. What a mess! I'll try to pick this up tomorrow.

No matter how long and deep you are going to look at it, it is not going to change. Some morphs will be present in the clothing and some won't. There is no possible way (determined by time spent and revenue) to cover all morphs in past, present and future. Most vendors list the morphs they support in their product description and/or readme files. That is where you have to determine wether the outfit is worth it for you or not. There are tools (netherworlks clothing kit, wardrobe wizard and other tools) which can transfer morphs to clothing. Usually this works fine, but in some cases you will find out why the vendor did not choose to support that morph.

Each (established) vendor has also figured out his or her most efficient way to build clothing. The tools they use vary, so the way the clothes are built varies as well. There is no "good" or "bad" way. Often the vendors reuse a lot of what they have built already (rigging, morphs, jcm's) and the same limitations apply to much of their clothing.

So we have to live with it and in time you will find your favorite vendors who will deliver the quality you want. Which ones depends on your own needs.

I scale almost all of my figures now in PP2012 to make them have different heights

V4 is tall enough already for my use. I have scaled M4 taller and also shorter then the female character in the scene. If you don't want to go thru all the clothes loaded on your characters and check the boxes one by one or uncheck the boxes one by one. Copy the below and save to a text file with the extension of .py and put where ever you like in your scripts folder...(1) checks the boxes. Duplicate the script and change the (1) to (0) to make an uncheck script.

import poser
scene = poser.Scene()
scene.SetFrame(0)

for OneFig in scene.Figures():
    OneFig.SetIncludeScalesWhenConforming(1)
    OneFig.SetIncludeMorphsWhenConforming(1)

scene.DrawAll()

I am well aware of the benefits that dynamic clothing brings to Poser, but it has its drawbacks as well. Conforming outfits that actually conform to the character you are working with and can handle the poses are so darn easy to work with.

moriador, I agree that usually it's easier to just dial down the character morphs than it is to mess with the outfit. Boobs are usually the problem so I'll take a look at VaVoom. Thanks.

wimvdb, the conforming outfits' lack of consistency that I mentioned earlier is, I am sure, due to the various tools that vendors use to create the items and to whatever tricks the vendors use to get it to work. I susupect that a lot of these 3rd party products are made the same way a lot of HTML pages are built. In your WYSIWYG you try one thing, then another and another until finally it looks the way you want it, so you just leave it alone. On the outside it looks just fine, but open up the code, and Sweet Jesus, what a mess! Since I come from a programming background, I'm willing to be that if I ever tried my hand at creating an outfit, my code would be pristine, but the clothing itself wouldn't be something I'd even want to give to Goodwill.

Quote - No matter how long and deep you are going to look at it, it is not going to change. Some morphs will be present in the clothing and some won't. There is no possible way (determined by time spent and revenue) to cover all morphs in past, present and future. Most vendors list the morphs they support in their product description and/or readme files. That is where you have to determine wether the outfit is worth it for you or not. There are tools (netherworlks clothing kit, wardrobe wizard and other tools) which can transfer morphs to clothing. Usually this works fine, but in some cases you will find out why the vendor did not choose to support that morph. Each (established) vendor has also figured out his or her most efficient way to build clothing. The tools they use vary, so the way the clothes are built varies as well. There is no "good" or "bad" way. Often the vendors reuse a lot of what they have built already (rigging, morphs, jcm's) and the same limitations apply to much of their clothing.

So we have to live with it and in time you will find your favorite vendors who will deliver the quality you want. Which ones depends on your own needs.

Another factor is that each morph added to the clothing increases the filesize, both in the download zip or exe, and when installed.

If you have Poser 6 and above, you can use most conforming skirts/dresses in the cloth room. Simply clothify the hip of the garment.

What about garments that hang from the chest or shoulders?  That's where I have the most problem with getting clothes to conform.  They just don't hang right over the breasts.

Well, I spent a good chunk of the day experimenting with my conforming outfits, and I discovered a thing or two.

1. Some outfits require the "Include morphs when conforming" box to be checked before they will conform to the model. Some don't. I can't see a downside to having it checked always, so I'm puzzeled as to why that isn't the default.

2. Outfits ALWAYS need the "Include scales when conforming" to scale with the model.

3. The oddest thing was that many of the outfits conformed to the model even when they weren't properly conformed. In other words, I would load Vickie, then load an outfit but not conform it to Vickie. I would then move the outfit off to the side a bit and then turn the dials on some of Vickie's morphs, and the outfit would respond to that just as if was actually conformed.

4. Some outfits had morphs that conformed just fine with the matching model morphs, but the dials were hidden, so you had no way of knowing which morphs would work and which wouldn't.

So tomorrow I'm going to see how the morphs get carried over to the outfit.

Quote - What about garments that hang from the chest or shoulders?  That's where I have the most problem with getting clothes to conform.  They just don't hang right over the breasts.

Unfortunately I think the conforming clothing in the cloth room only works for the hip, not parts above or below.  For conforming clothing to fit breasts, I was using Wardrobe Wizard version 1.

You can also "constrain" some groups like sleeves

i still think that for clothing items like armour, and certain exotic cloths, then they have to be conformed, but for true body flow and realistic fit, for anything that is lets say a flexible fabric imitate, like cotton, silk, satin , rubber, latex etc, you will go a long way to beat the realism of a cloth simulation. and of course the beauty of it is that you can pick the frame that best suits your render. I only think it is a matter that people have perceived dynamic clothing to be the poor cousin of conforming cloths, when in many regards it is far superior. just my opinion of course........merry xmas

I would like to add, pose your model first before introducing conforming clothing.  You will find that in most cases, the clothing will fit better with both the pose and morph combined.  Some of those pokethru issues will actual resolve itself.  But this not for everything.

Quote - Well, I spent a good chunk of the day experimenting with my conforming outfits, and I discovered a thing or two.

1. Some outfits require the "Include morphs when conforming" box to be checked before they will conform to the model. Some don't. I can't see a downside to having it checked always, so I'm puzzeled as to why that isn't the default.

2. Outfits ALWAYS need the "Include scales when conforming" to scale with the model.

3. The oddest thing was that many of the outfits conformed to the model even when they weren't properly conformed. In other words, I would load Vickie, then load an outfit but not conform it to Vickie. I would then move the outfit off to the side a bit and then turn the dials on some of Vickie's morphs, and the outfit would respond to that just as if was actually conformed.

4. Some outfits had morphs that conformed just fine with the matching model morphs, but the dials were hidden, so you had no way of knowing which morphs would work and which wouldn't.

So tomorrow I'm going to see how the morphs get carried over to the outfit.

1. and 2) Include conforming and include scales were introduced in P9/PP2012. Clothing made before P9 certainly does not have this feature checked and some vendors have found their own way of doing this without the help of Poser. Turning these features on in some cases breaks this.

2. That is due to the nature of crosstalking. The (clothing) figures have been setup to be tied to a particular figure and will inherit the morph settings. This used to be a bug until someone discovered a use for it, and now it is a feature (auto conforming). It does have its drawbacks however. The include morphs when conforming is a replacement for the crosstalk/autoconforming feature without the drawbacks. But it is not supported in DS and pre-Poser 9 versions. That is why the old method is still used

3. Hidden dials is a nasty habit DAZ introduced to make it "easier". It would be if all morphs were included and no poke through existed. Unfortunately this is not the case 0 hence my remark of a "nasty" habit. There is a tool however which can make them all visible (SceneFixer).

One more remark. In most clothing which autoconforms, the body dials will not work. You have to use the bodypart dials if you want to change the morphs in the clothing. Some vendors have found a way around it and their clothing does autoconform and the body dials do work (recent clothing from 3DAge work this way). It than usually also autoscales.

Thanks for all that info, wimvdb. One note though - The "Include morphs/scales... " checkboxes came with P8 at least.

So if I understand you correctly, the earlier outfits would auto-conform, but that was considered a bug. You mentioned a use for it. What was that and what were the drawbacks of auto-conform?

I take it that the two checkboxes were added so that the user could turn on or off the auto-conform feature. Is that right?

Quote - Thanks for all that info, wimvdb. One note though - The "Include morphs/scales... " checkboxes came with P8 at least.

So if I understand you correctly, the earlier outfits would auto-conform, but that was considered a bug. You mentioned a use for it. What was that and what were the drawbacks of auto-conform?

I take it that the two checkboxes were added so that the user could turn on or off the auto-conform feature. Is that right?

You are right. The scale and conform boxes were added in P8

In P4 there was a bug which was called crosstalking. It happened when you loaded 2 figures and dialing morphs in one figure would set it in the second figure as well. Some clever person made use of that and invented autoconforming for clothes. In P5 or P6 the bug was solved and - after complaints - put back again in a service release because DAZ had picked up the autoconforming and it did not work anymore. This has not changed since then. So the autoconforming is still the same.

The two checkboxes in itself have nothing to do with autoconforming. It is another way to move similarly named morphs from one figure to another conformed figure. This is on a figure by figure basis and not system wide. One is a deliberate thing the other a clever trick.

OK. This is starting to make sense now.

Now that I think about it, conforming clothes do two things: (1)They move, twist and bend with the base figure, and (2) they respond to the morphs of the base figure. You seem to make a distinction between conforming clothes and auto-conforming clothes. Is that what the difference is? Does conforming strictly mean responding to movement of the base figure while auto-conforming means responding to the base figure's morphs? Or am I reading too much into this?

So, back to the check boxes...

It looks like vendors can design their clothing to either auto-conform or to require the check boxes. The internal mechanics for how the clothes work may be very different but to the user the behavior should be identical (assuming that the clothing is "Conformed to...." the base figure and the "Include morphs when conforming" box is checked. Is that right?

So how is the user supposed to know whether to check the box or not especially since "turning these features on in some cases breaks this"?

Quote - OK. This is starting to make sense now.

Now that I think about it, conforming clothes do two things: (1)They move, twist and bend with the base figure, and (2) they respond to the morphs of the base figure. You seem to make a distinction between conforming clothes and auto-conforming clothes. Is that what the difference is? Does conforming strictly mean responding to movement of the base figure while auto-conforming means responding to the base figure's morphs? Or am I reading too much into this?

Correct, that is it

Quote - So, back to the check boxes...

It looks like vendors can design their clothing to either auto-conform or to require the check boxes. The internal mechanics for how the clothes work may be very different but to the user the behavior should be identical (assuming that the clothing is "Conformed to...." the base figure and the "Include morphs when conforming" box is checked. Is that right?

Ideally they should be the same. But in practice, this is not always the case. For the checkboxes to work, the clothing has to be made with the exact names for all the morphs (I think external actor names, but I am not sure). For the autoconforming, the internal names have to be identical. If both are the same (internal and external), they should do the same. Except..... The FBM often do not work in autoconforming clothes, so the checkbox conforming is ignored, which does not matter because the autoconforming works. And there are some clever people again, which DO make FBMs work with autoconformingm but most clothing does not.

Quote - So how is the user supposed to know whether to check the box or not especially since "turning these features on in some cases breaks this"?

Here you get into the realm of compatibility. DS and pre Poser 8 do not have the checkboxes, so often autoconforming is used to remain compatible with these versions. How should the user know? Good question - I think the only way is to try the box for a clothing item when it does not fit. If it works for one item, it usually works for all the items in that set.

Is this a mess? Yes, in a certain way it is. On the other hand, you get used to it pretty quickly to checking the boxes on or off is not a big thing. Often the boxes are checked for P9 only items because the compatibility problem does not exist there.

Sweet Jesus! No wonder I've been baffled!

OK, so if I understand this correctly...

Prior to P8 clothing vendors made auto-conforming outfits, but there was a problem with that. (Wait... what was the problem again? Crosstalk?) So starting with P8 Poser added these checkboxes, and the vendors started making clothes with the new paradigm. (Does that new paradigm have a name?) However most (many? some?) vendors now make their outfits to work with either or both paradigms.

So the older outfits (pre-P8) should conform automatically to thier parent figure. Newer outfits may auto-conform or may require the checkbox.

Or something like that.

The autoconforming way (crosstalk) depends on the order in which things are loaded and how the CR2 is built. It does go wrong easily, especially with multiple figures of the same type. 

Most vendors still use the crosstalk way of autoconforming simply because it works in all versions of Poser and DS and because they developed their own method of doing it.

The new (P8/P9) way is simply a matter of naming the morphs correctly. No special built CR2 is needed. As far as I know, there is no specific name for it.

Why doesn't every vendor use both methods?
Because sometimes they bite eachother (morphs are doubled). It depends on how the CR2 is built and crosstalk may get in the way here. Another reason is that certain users expect things to work a certain way, and that's what they do.

So the whole conforming thing is confusing and complicated. I don't think anyone disagrees here. But it is not going to change for gen4 because of compatibility reasons

For other figures there are alternatives such as for Posers own figures, genesis, dynamic clothing because the compatibility issues do not really come into play here.

Is there a way to tell one from the other by looking at the cr2?

Crosstalk works perfect with my Poser 9 and the figures i create

(as some know, taller than tall)... I love this technique.

It is sad though that you can not use the word Crosstalk when search the marketplace.

Renderosity should change that

I want to have a list of crosstalk articles.