I've spent way to long - trying each set of hair I own (it's alot). I need natural movement when the head moves (flowing, gravity, some wind)... clothification.

However, all my hair just falls off in 'calculations' inside the Cloth room. (I need long, curly hair, hopefully with a widow's peak)...

How do I best fix this (here's my preferred order - please tell me what's possible?):

1. BUY something that exists (happy to, if it exists - how do I recognize contrained ones?).
2. Learn how to constrain existing hair so it won't fall off.
3. Pay someone to create it, if difficult.
4. Learn how to build it myself. 

Thanks for any help here,
STUCK,
Jim 

1. I cant help with

2. and 4. are pretty much the same (2. being the easy option)

3. well have a go at 2. first then you know how much to pay someone ;-)

think of the hair as lots of strips laid on a swim cap

what you need to do is select the frst row (nearest cap) and set them as constrained

could do that in poser using grouping tool (might drive you mad)

could do it in your modeler maybe a bit easier

now I dont know if after doing all that you will get the results you want , some hair it might work ok some it deferantly wont

might be better for you to look for dynamic hair

I don't know of any hair that is curly and has a widow's peak, irrespective of how it's made. I think dynamic cloth won't play well with curly hair, because the curls will tend to drop out as it's simulated. All the dynamic cloth hair I know of has been straight, probably for good reason.

Joebushido's dynamic cloth hair is no longer available, but I haven't had much success with it so far.

I read somewhere that 3Dream's Glorious Hair (at DAZ, hence no link) clothifies well, but I don't have it so can't comment further.

Shaara is free dynamic cloth hair that may be worth trying; even though it isn't the style you're looking for, it may offer some hints as to what can an cannot be achieved. I haven't had time to explore it myself. Best of luck... ;-)

Suggest:-

Open the hair OBJ in UVMapper.
Select one row of polygons at the hair root.
Assign to a new material. (I usually call it "roots")
Save OBJ

Use that OBJ as your hair in the cloth room.
Assign the root material to the constrained cloth group.

Now when you run the simulation the hair will stay on the head.

I wonder if one sets the curls to "decorated" with areas between them to "dynamic", the strands could keep their general shape but still be moveable enough to react to movement and wind.

Most likely the calculation would be too much for Poser, but might be worth a test.

Awesome comments - will likely try all of them. I especially appreciate Joe's consideration that a combination could produce a realistic bouncy, curly, physically affected result.

[more ideas welcome too!!!] - I'm also willing to consider straight, long, no-widow's peak hair if someone wants to recommend a good one.

Thanks,