I've been learning 3DS Max and Poser. Piecing together bits and pieces of information from various sources, I've learned how to use both programs comfortably enough to produce my own original geometries. Lately I have put full emphasis on modeling clothing figures. I understand the concept of bone structures in order to conform clothing to figures, but I am perplexed by a specific complexity regarding the hips, thighs, etc.

Getting to the point:

If I make a dress for an intended Poser figure and then load the figure's skeleton and groups in the Setup room of Poser itself, I am able to conform the dress to the intended Poser figure. When I do that, anytime I try to move the legs of the figure, the mesh of the dress breaks in order to follow the leg being moved. I have attached two screenshots of my problem in full visual detail.

What perplexes me is that artists who have created dresses and skirts on Renderosity seem to have their dresses and skirts following the intended figures' legs with smootheness and ease, and yet they typically do not have any polygonal groups for the thighs or buttocks.

What I want to do is get the skirt portion of the dress to follow leg movements without breaking up in the mesh. I have searched endlessly for any articles that cover this issue, but I have found none. Any assistance would be more than appreciated.

When showing something like this, show a wireframe of the model.

In Poser, for the hip-buttock-thight to work, the groups have to be welded.
Also,
The left and right buttock and thight groups can not touch each other.
You have to remove the touching poly's from those goups and add them to the hip group, then weld.

Will try to add a screengrab later.

Do not mix up with Dynamic clothing that have no groups.

How do you weld the group? Is this done in 3DS Max or in Poser?

I've found the weld group button, but I'm not sure how to use it. I'll try PhilC's guide.

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

I'm totally lost. I don't know what is meant by the "touching polygons".

http://my.smithmicro.com/tutorials/44.html

Your problem is the mesh.
Poser works best with quads,and you have all tris.

Tris are good for dynamic clothing, but a nightmare for conforming clothing.

Doc Geep has some vey good tutorials on the grouping editor.
I do not have the link right here but do a forum search for Grouping editor and Geep
as name.

First you ahve to remove all polygons from the left and right buttocks and thights groups that touch each other.
Then yu have to add these polygons to the hip actor and click the weld button in poser.
Do it front and back.

But for conforming? Build a mesh in quads.

Hmm, then I guess the Garment Maker modifier goes out the window then in 3DS Max, lol. That thing only subdivides splines into tri's, as far as I'm aware. Thanks for the help, though. I knew something must have been wrong, but I couldn't figure out what.

It's not the tris, though those are making grouping far more difficult.

You've still got left and right thigh groups in there.  In fact, the group lines are a mess!

Here's your problem in a nutshell - the thighs weld to the hip.  They do not, and cannot, weld to each other.  What I see there is the hip group overlapping the thigh group, therefore trying to move multiple groups.  Where you see the stretched tris is the thigh welding to the hip.  Where you see the break is the unwelded left thigh. 

You're best option is to eliminate the thigh groups entirely, group the bottom of the dress to the hip, then rig movement/ghost bones as explained in this PhilC tutorial: http://philc.net/Body_Handles_the_Video.php

You're very best option, though is to listen to vitters and make the dress dynamic.  Those tris are going to haunt whatever you try to do in a conforming outfit.

What Glitterati said, for skirts. Making the skirt all hip & using ghost bones is better.

For a conformer piece:

You can group very accurately in your modeling program--much easier than Poser, for me, at least. I can heartily recommend Fugazi1968's Digital Tailor series on modeling, grouping, rigging, and so forth for Poser. That's where I learned it! Well, that and help from good friends when I got stuck. ;)

The basic workflow:

Box-model your garment from a cylinder or cube, working with your human figure in the scene and fitting the garment to it. You basically make a very low poly shape with only quads, fit, subdivide and refine the mesh to add geometry and smooth. This will get rid of most tris, BTW. Repeat. Get the geometry complexity about the same level as the figure's. Less is more, as a rule of thumb.

Grouping is making selections that reflect the underlying figure's polygon islands, then making your own islands from your original mesh by cutting and pasting in place. These new islands MUST have the same names as the underlying figure's mesh islands for the grouping to work right later.

When that's done--and it's a fiddly business--you select all the new mesh islands and export them as a single OBJ file. This is what you import into Poser, with no options chosen, and bring into the setup room.

Rigging is based on the CR2 of the figure you made the clothing for, and that's another story.

Again, Fugazi1968's video tutorials in the Rendo store are EXCELLENT. He uses Silo, but you should be able to apply everything to Max.

Hope this helps. Yell if you need more. :)

Thank you so much, everybody. I've noticed on most of the figures here on Renderosity, the entire skirt area is part of the hip group while the left and right buttocks, as well as the left and right thighs, are unselected. But I also noticed the bones were left there, so I can only assume those are the "ghost" bones you're both referring to.

I'll experiment with these tips later. Thanks again.

Hi--

Sorry, no. The thigh and/or buttock bones are left in for abstruse reasons I forget--except for the rule that rigging should include one bone beyond those that are meshed and grouped.

The "ghost bones" are sometimes called "handles" as they are actually other than the figure's rigged bones. That PhilC tutorial will explain it pretty well.

Simply put:

I designed a mock dress geometry in 3DS Max and imported it to Poser. I loaded it into the setup room, and at the advice of Mytilus (an artist/vendor here on Renderosity that I talk to) and a number of you, I selected the entire skirt portion of the geometry and added it to the Hip group.

When I do this, the dress perfectly follows the left and right buttocks, but it does not follow the left and right thighs. I am completely mystified by this.

Is this because of the step concerning "Weld Group"? If I select the entire skirt portion of the geometry, adding all the polygons to that Hip group and then hitting the Weld Group button, it seems to have no effect.

I have detailed my problem in the above screenshot. Any insight would be more than appreciated.

There are 3 completely different ways to do this.

The one you are using is to add all geometry to the hip group.
OK, but hen you have to add a bone to the hip.

=> Check the video of PhilC on how to create that extra bone.

Creating a bone specifically for bending the skirt? That one's easy. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Mytilus and Pretty3D, but they have this way where the skirt literally conforms to the leg movements even when they added the whole skirt to the Hip group. Check out the vendor Mytilus here in Renderosity's Marketplace to see what I mean.

Mytilus himself is as confused with my problem as I am, lol. That's why I'm asking around.

Quote - Creating a bone specifically for bending the skirt? That one's easy. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Mytilus and Pretty3D, but they have this way where the skirt literally conforms to the leg movements even when they added the whole skirt to the Hip group. Check out the vendor Mytilus here in Renderosity's Marketplace to see what I mean.

Because for a micro mini skirt, the thighs will work if you know how to rig them and adjust falloff zones and the hip.

However, neither of your examples is a short skirt.  And, once you add any length to the skirt, the PhilC video is the only solution.  Of course, we'd be happy to provide a complete list, with links of tutorials by some of the post popular artists who have spent years doing this, but the PhilC tutorial is 1) free and 2) answers everyone of the questions you've posed in this forum.

Now, if your goal is micro mini skirts that don't even cover the butt, follow the vitters example in the first reply and you're done.  Of course, you could also ask Mytilus again and you'd still be done.

Oh, I found another solution for you...since your project was a bath towel, why not just go pick up the Hot Shower Mytilus has in the marketplace?  It comes with a towel:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/hot-shower-for-v4-a4-g4-pbiv/71554

The project wasn't a bath towel, lol, though I do see why you would think it was. It was just a random geometry I came up with just to test the conforming process.

I don't want to bother with other people's work too much, as my whole point is to be able to create my own. I'm actually not a fan of the fashion model and lingerie stuff that Renderosity has littered throughout. I'm more into real world clothing and superhero stuff.

Quote - The project wasn't a bath towel, lol, though I do see why you would think it was. It was just a random geometry I came up with just to test the conforming process.

I don't want to bother with other people's work too much, as my whole point is to be able to create my own. I'm actually not a fan of the fashion model and lingerie stuff that Renderosity has littered throughout. I'm more into real world clothing and superhero stuff.

Ahhh, but that's one of the best learning tools - to observe and mimic the masters who have been there, done that.  Buying a well done product and using that as a teaching tool is just smart learning.

Understand I don't mean copying anything, just learning from it.  Look at the morphs, watch the movement bones and see how they avoid stretching the texture when they morph.  What are limits and why are they set a specific way....there's a wealth of knowledge just waiting for you to explore.

Well done tutorials are absolutely the best learning method.  Invest in them if you really want to learn the trade properly.  Some of the best tutorial writers are Sveva here at Rendo, Littlefox at RDNA, Fugazi1968 here at Rendo, DarkEdgeDesign at RDNA.  I have never regretted an investment in tutorials.  And, I've purchased every one in the list I just typed out.

Learning this takes time.  Impatience will be your worst enemy.

Well, I do have "some" figures purchased from here and DAZ and Content Paradise, but they seem to be confusing me more than they are teaching me. I've tried to mimick what the authors have done, grouping the entire skirt to the Hip group, but it still doesn't seem to respond to thigh movements. It only responds to buttock movements. I seem to be doing it the same way, but it's not producing the same result, and that's why I'm confused.

Quote - Well, I do have "some" figures purchased from here and DAZ and Content Paradise, but they seem to be confusing me more than they are teaching me. I've tried to mimick what the authors have done, grouping the entire skirt to the Hip group, but it still doesn't seem to respond to thigh movements. It only responds to buttock movements. I seem to be doing it the same way, but it's not producing the same result, and that's why I'm confused.

You're NOT doing it the same way.  Watch.  The.  PhilC Video.