Hello,

As some of you may know (or some may not) I'm currently working on making the famous Marilyn Monroe dress for someone who requested it.

I made the dress and it looks great, I added some detail too like the wrinkle type effects and stuff... the problem is when I calculate dynamics it tends to basically erase the detail... I would like to know if there is a way to make it so it does not get rid of the detail and retains atleast some of it's original shape?

Thanks in advanced.

Shape is held or destroyed according to the settings you have in the following :

Bend Resistance
Shear Resistance
Stretch Resistance
Cloth Density

Unfortunately the relationship between these settings are not really explained, which leads to epic frustration!

Bend Resistance controls how much each vertice tries to keep its angular relationship to the vertice around it. higher numbers will help keep shape of folds etc.

Shear Resistance controls how much each vertice tries to keep its angular relationship between adjacent vertice according to the normal direction of the polygons attached to the vertice. increasing this number will help keep polygons from becoming to skewed.

Stretch Resistance controls how much each vertice tries to keep its distance from all vertice attached to the same polygon.  Increasing this will help keep polygons from bunching together and collapsing.

Cloth Density is the amount of weight added to each vertice to allow gravitational calculations. Higher weights will require higher resistances to stop the material acting unrealisticly.

The most likely cause of your issue is that cloth density is high enough that it is completely overcoming bend and shear resistance, instead being controlled mostly by just stretch resistance.  As the cloth stretchs it will flatten out areas of cloth to ensure that the amount a vertice stretches is the least amount possible by "bending" and "shearing" the vertice before stretching it.

That probably makes no sense at all!

Okay, it does make sense... I'm just not sure what settings I should use then... Are there any references to what type of settings I should be using?

I would do the following myself :

increase fold resistance to 900 and see what happens
reset fold and set shear to 900 and see what happens
reset shear and set stretch to 900 and see what happens

While the simulation runs I would look to see how much the details dissapear in relation to the simulation on default settings. then its a matter of finding the right combination of settings at the right amounts.  it can take a while!

If you were to set fold, shear and stretch to 900 and run the simulation, it would give you an idea of the maximum amount of "hold" you can achieve.  Then its just a matter of finding the right balance between rigidity and dynamic-ness (lol).

That assuming cloth density is on the default 0.005

What I do is:-

Load the dress.
Use the Poser morph tool set to smooth and smooth the bejebers out of the dress removing every crease and fold.
Export the dress OBJ.

Load the figure and original dress.
Do your Cloth Room Stuff.

Load the saved smoothed dress as a morph target.

............... and set the dial to minus one.

ta-dah! welcome back folds and creases.

Thanks to both of you...

templargfx - I will expirement and see what works and what doesn't, thank you. :)

PhilC - I like that idea, just one thing concerns me, I plan to release this as a freebie and I'm not really sure how others would go about using the morph? Would I just include in the readme that they have to set the dial to -1? Cause people don't always read the readme, unfortunately, lol... Thanks

Ive never tried to package up something like that, but I assume you could have the dress as a figure/prop, and the crease morph thingy as a pose to apply to the dress.  You could use the thumbnail and write "set morph to -1" in it or something.

--edit--

actually you could just include 2 poses, one with creases and one without. people would get the gist pretty quick (I hope)

If it is the minus one that is the problem then apply the morph to the original dress. Set the dial to -1, export out the OBJ, then use that as the morph the user will use.

Name it enhance-reduce folds maybe?

Or keep the original morph and name it reduce-enhance folds.

I feel that they'll figure it out one way or another :)

Quote - What I do is:-

Load the dress.
Use the Poser morph tool set to smooth and smooth the bejebers out of the dress removing every crease and fold.
Export the dress OBJ.

Load the figure and original dress.
Do your Cloth Room Stuff.

Load the saved smoothed dress as a morph target.

............... and set the dial to minus one.

ta-dah! welcome back folds and creases.

Brilliant idea! Excellent!

Just wondering: might it not be better to carry out the sim on the smoothed dress and use the original as the morph target?

Have you tried the constrained setting, and click 'add all'? I have done that with body suits and the like that I didn't want to drape and lose their shape during the cloth sim. It might work for this.

Oh I didn't know that was possible, I will try that. Thanks rokket!!

Quote - Oh I didn't know that was possible, I will try that. Thanks rokket!!

Let me know how it turns out!

Well I tried it rokket, but I think something went wrong cause the skirt part of the dress went up in the air and crumpled up, lol XD Could be the settings but I don't know, lol...

you dont say what your modeling in so this may NOT apply(blender does wink wink )

make low(ish) poly dress, uv map it, duplicate it and add a level or two of subD, add wrinkles then bake a displacment map to the low poly one, so all you have to do in poser is run the sim on the low poly then add the map, it should work (I think) but never tried it yet!!!! (only just looking at blenders baking abilites)

will try it out and let you know if it works

Quote - Well I tried it rokket, but I think something went wrong cause the skirt part of the dress went up in the air and crumpled up, lol XD Could be the settings but I don't know, lol...

Hmmm... I have never had that happen. Could be your settings. Could you post a screen cap of the cloth room at frame 1?

Hi icandy, I've just run some test simulations to see if I can help,
I remembered a discussion when bopperthijs was creating "Bopper's Spring Outfit"
which is a hybrid pleated skirt, which looks like it's exploding during simulation but renders fine.
This model has quite deep pleats modelled from the hip band and double row of verts as constrained group at the join between hip body part and dynamic skirt.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=49523

and Biscuits Short Dynamic Skirt

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=69184

this one has the entire model as a soft decorated group and is also modelled double sided.

I tried the whole skirt as soft decorated with PhilC's J5 Halter dress, it seemed at add considerable weight to the skirt and there was irreparable poke on the hip straight away and complete failure on the thighs, makes me wonder if Biscuits technique actually needs the double skin to make it work.
I ran a few other tests trying alternate vertical rows of verts as soft, rigid and constrained groups all to no effect.

What seemed most significant in the two successful models was the distribution of polys, much denser rows in the folds and broader spacing on the flats. If only one could ascribe behaviours to edges in the cloth room.

rokket - Yes the picture I attatched is the settings... although they are not the only settings I've tried, I'm kinda playing around with the settings like what templargfx suggested.

3Dave - Yeah, I'm not sure whether I should maybe also make the dress a hybrid too... I'm just at a loss, lol... I'm sorry I was expecting to have finished the dress for you by now, but it's a bit more complicated then I thought, lol.

Hope no one minds if I make this a sticky thread.  There is a lot of good information in it already on dynamic cloth that I'm sure others will benefit from.

Looking at your screen cap above, am I correct in assuming it is the verticle fold details, primarily on the upper part of the dress that you want to maintain?

Try setting Shear and Stretch to 900 with a cloth density of 0.0015

Also, something I forgot to mention earlier.  Collision Depth and Collision Offset (inside the collide with dialogue) can be a killer for detail if you have it set to high.  if polygons of your cloth (like the inner fold detail) are closer to V4's polygons than the collision depth or offset, these polygons will be pushed out until they are far enough away from V4.  This will abolish all model detail.

The default offset is 1 I believe.  I use 0.2.  try settings V4 to 0.2 for collision offset and depth

**Kendra **- No I don't mind at all... :)

templargfx  - Yes that's it... I didn't think of that with the collision offset/depth, thanks, I will try that and post the new results soon. :)

opps time zones can be a pita lol

not tried "my way " yet!! think Philc had some cloth setting(freestuff ?) can say if/when you get right settings in poser, remember!! share? ;-) , blender has cloth sims but they depend ALOT on size of model at least poserverse helps keep it simple lol even if its numbers are silly. From stuff I tried in blender setting dif values to dif parts of cloth  can help, think with grouping tool should be pos in poser(not tried) , sorta suprised Rockets method didn't give acceptable results, but when I have tried that way I have run a sim in blender first so sorta know the mesh is ok 

will try the map way when I get home!! sure it will do wrinkles not sure about deep pleats(kilt)

I have to make the map then I will try it... I already made the low res, I basically just opened the original project file and exported just the dress then I converted it to tris and UVmapped it in Zbrush.

I ran a sim to see how it worked and so far it works way better cause I don't have to worry about detail... So I think the map solution is the best one so far (for this particular project) so thanks heddheld

I'm with PhilC, your product should contain a morph dial which brings in the wrinkles and folds details (from 0 to 1 or so).

Then one can apply dynamics, which will make you loose some detail anyway, and these can be brought back by further increasing the details-dial (from 1 to 2). People who don't bother about the readme for the dial will not read any instructions on the dynamics either, so don't worry about them.

I did a pile of advanced tuts on my website on Poser ClothRoom (parameters). http://www.book.artbeeweb.nl/?book=cloth-room . It's all in there. Well, almost.

Note that when you start tweaking poly density, large polies make thick cloth and subdivision makes the cloth behave smoother and thinner. More polies per surface make less cloth, instead of more!

have fun.

I thought I'd give hedheld's suggestion a try too, I made a quick and dirty texture for PhilC's dress,  using the template to darken alternate columns of quads and did some renders without simulating the cloth.

image 1 shows the wireframe

image 2 plain white/untextured

image 3 striped texture applied to diffuse and specular material

image 4 as above but with bump and displacement.

I think if I took more time over the texture, and "burned" one edge of the stripes for fake shadow the effect would better

aRtBee

Quote - Note that when you start tweaking poly density, large polies make thick cloth and subdivision makes the cloth behave smoother and thinner. More polies per surface make less cloth, instead of more!

So is that how pleats work in the skirt models I mentioned, the polys actually pulling the cloth tighter?

Thanks for the link to the tutorials too

You don't have to load the morph from disk it can be prepared in advance as any other morph.

that worked well vintorix! Its like the one on the right has just been ironed, whereas the one on the left hasnt been ironed in ages!

templargfx, "the one on the right has just been ironed, whereas the one on the left hasnt been ironed in ages!"

I might be a newcomer here (only 3 years..) but I have learned one thing, PhilC is never wrong. Actually I heard a rumor that he was wrong once in 1975, but it turned out to be incorrect.

awesome thread

thank you.

i just noticed there is a print linkie.  mega awesome

If you made a dress, you are able to create "multilayered" skirt. On picture you can see skirt, made with 2 similar meshes - smooth and draped.

Smooth dress is treated as dynamic group and draped as a soft decorated.

  are there some secrets to cloth friction and settings? 

http://www.philc.net/freestuff_archive.php   half way down the page, is the free cloth room presets, mlp, a good place to explore the settings ........

and the SM page on settings

http://my.smithmicro.com/tutorials/2313.html  make sure to scroll, there some stuff right at the bottom of the page

thanks!  today is turning into a play with clothroom day.

i was thinking of the kind of friction like the train of a wedding gown dragging on the floor, it tugs a bit.