The makers of Marvelous Designer have issus an update of Marvelous Designer 3. 

This update provides, among others, the possibility to load an existing garment object geometry definition, like ones uses in the Poser cloth room, and take it into the simulation. Even better is that the vertex order apears to remain intact, and simulated clothing object files can be exported and loaded as morph target into Poser.

This may sound like a roundabout way of working, but the MD cloth simulator is way superior over Poser's cloth room. First of all it is much much faster and second the user can directly and freely intervene in the simulation at any time: Vertices can be 'pinned' or moved around to pull the clothing where necessary, and stiffness and buckling parameters can be set for weft and warp direction (U and V direction) separately and in general there is much more control over the behaviour of the fabric during simulation than Poser 

Another good new feature is that clothing models can be exported with 'thickness' so the edges and reverse sides are actually modeled in the geometry. This of course will break the morph compatibility with the base geometry, so an extra 'round' of export-import would be required.        

For more information see the thread at the Marvelous Designer Forum

(My dear Moderators: I apologise for the shameless promotion of a thread in another forum, but I think this information can be important for the community and may open new methods of working) 

Got that update sometime last weekend I think. Hadn't had a chance to use it yet. Nice to hear about the new feature.

This software was completely off my radar, but reading this here, brings it quite back on again.

So all this means, that now (in theory at least) I can perhaps take any cloth piece (*.obj) and import it into the latest MD version and have it run a simulation there?

Sounds almost to good to be true, hehe ... but if so, that's quite a nice leap forward and I might have a 3rd look at it again =)

you are right. the .obj must be 'structurally intact', of course, like it must be for use in the Poser cloth room. MD features different properties in 'weft' and 'warp' directions, which are taken in U and V direction  Results therefore are also dependent on the UV mapping of the object surface.

since you seem to be the MD promotor, just some questions:

1. is MD - on say a yearly basis - still about 10 times as expensive as Poser?
   (at this moment MD goes for $350/year at 50% rebate, Poser updates once in 1 or 2 years, for $78,- without the fierce rebate is has once or twice a year).

2. can MD handle / import quads by now, or is it still on tris only?
   (not according to their FAQ, but that might be lagging behind a bit)

3. can MD animatie / export (as animated morph targets preferrably) multiple clothing items in a multi-object environment? For example:

Two girls and two boys, swirling around each other. Girls wear wide flamengo dresses, which rise and rotate due to girl movement / gravity / air damping, dresses interact / collide with each other, and collide / interact with the male legs as well.

(I only see MD in single character single garment situations, that's why I'm asking).

You know, I like both products, but comparing them with words like superior seems to me like comparing a Ferrari F1 with a Fiat 500. Both Italian, both red, both names start with an F. And for shopping in Rome or Amsterdam, the Fiat is by far superior :-)

Quote - since you seem to be the MD promotor, just some questions:

To much honour really. I am not a promotor but MD implements a very interesting method of working which I think is important enough to be discussed in this forum. In fact I am quite critical about the implementation. 

Quote - 1. is MD - on say a yearly basis - still about 10 times as expensive as Poser?(at this moment MD goes for $350/year at 50% rebate, Poser updates once in 1 or 2 years, for $78,- without the fierce rebate is has once or twice a year). 

 
It is, and if you read my posts on the MD forum you will also see how I think about that. The MD team comes from the high end market, and it takes them time to learn the only way to a flourishing community is to appeal the huge potential market of hobby Poser/DazStudio users. It is not for nothing that I did not yet upgrade my MD2 license to MD3. I am not sure if the steps they made over the last half year willl tip the balance.    > Quote - 2. can MD handle / import quads by now, or is it still on tris only?

(not according to their FAQ, but that might be lagging behind a bit)

It can hadle quads in the sense that imported objects built from quads are converted to tris. Quads are still on the list for Q1 this year, but with the Q4 2013 items they were about 4 weeks late with an incomplete implementation, released after noise was made on the forum. Too much was said about this subject already. The shot answe is 'no, it can noy yet handle quads.On the plus side I can say that I found the MD3 trial I have now very stable.     

Quote - 3. can MD animatie / export (as animated morph targets preferrably) multiple clothing items in a multi-object environment? For example:Two girls and two boys, swirling around each other. Girls wear wide flamengo dresses, which rise and rotate due to girl movement / gravity / air damping, dresses interact / collide with each other, and collide / interact with the male legs as well.

(I only see MD in single character single garment situations, that's why I'm asking).

Multiple garment is not a problem. The logic unit is the pattern. Patterns can be sewn to each other or not. When two patterns are not part of the same structural unit you will see them as two different pieces of clothing. Same holds for avatars. You can provide multiple avatars and all can be individually posed. You can however not load a pose for a specific avatar. > Quote - You know, I like both products, but comparing them with words like superior seems to me like comparing a Ferrari F1 with a Fiat 500. Both Italian, both red, both names start with an F. And for shopping in Rome or Amsterdam, the Fiat is by far superior :-)

I fully agree with you about the superior versatility of the Fiat over the Ferrari. The comparison I made refers to the simulation process. The difference can bettter be described as between a Fiat with a 2000 cc engine in which you are behind the wheel and and a Fiat with a 500 cc engine, slack in the steering, and the wheel handled by a dummy that can only start and stop on a track that you laid out for him before departure. 

appreciated, this adds to my understanding.

I guess I "will go MD" one day. One step at a time.

Quads have been "Next quarter" for 3 years.

A lot of stymied promises over there, and there were certain features that disappeared from v2 to v3.  Can't remember what right now, but many users were alienated on the release of V3.

I wasn't alienated by MD3, I'm just not bothering with it. MD2 is fine for what I need. The extra expense of MD3 isn't worth it for me.

 Maybe what I'm not understanding is the licensing. When I buy Poser, I pay for it once, and that's it.  I can use it for ever if I want at least until I upgrade.

But what I'm understanding is that MD licenses the program for one year, and then you have to pay the same price for the same program next year, and next year and ... so on.

MD looks like a great program, but if my understanding of the licensing is correct, it's way too expensive for me.

when you want to go commercial, which is about anything people do on Rendo marketplace (think files in MD format or OBJ format for money), an Enterprise licence is required. That's a one-off excluding upgrades, for either single-machine or network (single user each moment).

I'm not that sure whether selling MD (based) renders for money is considered commercial, but as it's hard to tell which tools are used from an image alone, I guess it's not.

For non-commercial use, the Personal licence can be obtained in Basic and Advanced style, either on a one-off basis excluding upgrades, or on a monthly fee including upgrades. When you tend to take each upgrade, the latter usually is cheaper. (Other software, like Vue, if offered the same way, some people like that). At the moment, the monthly fee version paid annually is at a 50% rebate.

Poser comes as one-off, in Poser and Pro, (about yearly) upgrades have to be paid for separately, and you're allowed to go commercial with anything you make out of it. Once or twice a year there is a rebate-round.

When you compare Poser and MD Personal Advanced, either both on rebate or both without, on the long term with regular upgrades, on a monthly costs basis, then MD is about ten times as expensive as Poser.

MD is good, and worthwhile the money for those who are active in that area and willing to spend that money for it, and relates to Poser quite well.

But as I said in an earlier post above, I don't feel comfortable when it's compared to Poser Cloth Room, they are just completely different leagues. The latter is a 15 (!) year old module within a piece of software, which can handle various kinds of tri-mesh geometries as well as hex, pents and quad, and can handle multi-garment multi-object animations, and can handle dynamic/conforming (hybrid) mixtures as well. And might benefit from an upgrade on speed, fault-handling, interface, documentation, and more, but that aside.

But OP did not (mean to) compare, he just informed us. Which I thank him for.

Poser Pro 2014 is $499.99 at Smithmicro right now. Marveleous Designer is $549.99 Perpetual license for the Personal Advanced edition which allows commercial use. True they say "Major upgrades available at $274" but major upgrades are about every other year, just as with Poser. It has just been an upgrade that was free. So how do you make that ten  times more expensive?

Yes it works with tris but how does that matter? With the new zBrush people nowadays routinely retop several times during a workflow. zBrush is indispensable so that is no extra cost. And the latest MD3 can import obj quads and return the same vertex count, so you can use it both for morphs and for permanently changing the flow of your mesh.

Finally the MD Team HAS tried to cater for the hobbyist market. For a long time it cost only $199 and even $99 in a introductory offer. Although is is a perfect partner for Daz or Poser the interest was rather low (as all things new is in the Poser community I might add). So you can't blame them.

Comparing:

on the long term, the initial buy does not really matter. I've seen free versions of Poser in the past. Let's assume no rebate, bi-yearly upgrade from previous version.

MD Personal Advanced: $60,- a month = $1.440 over two years. When paid annually it's 50% off, presented as it looks a temporary rebate to me. Somewhat down, a major upgrade costs 275,-. If the latter is a serious structural price to be paid bi-yearly, then the monthly rate doesn't make any sense to me. So, what's up? 

PPro: $ 250,- bi-yearly

Poser: $ 80,- (which still does include the complete Cloth Room)

Licence: MD personal allows commercial use, even when you're a freelancer, but not when you have to be considered a legal entity. Then an Enterprice license costs $3000 (one off, excl upgrades). In real life this will usually mean that when you're an artist into imaging, all is fine. And you might sell an eventual Poser morph as well. But when you're into garmenting itself, even individual artists will be an 'entity' for legal or fiscal reasons alone.

But whatever the details, I still have the opinion that MD is a good product in a league quite different from Poser Cloth Room. As V-ray is a good product in a different league from FireFly, and so on. So I don't favor simple comparisons.

"MD Personal Advanced: $60,- a month = $1.440 over two years"

Are you missing that you can buy a normal license? MD call it a "Perpetual" license but it is the same as Poser.

"Licence: MD personal allows commercial use, even when you're a freelancer, but not when you have to be considered a legal entity."

Maybe they explain poorly, but as long as you are a single freelancer, legal entity or not, you are entitled to all things commercial. That goes for 99% of the content creators here in the Poser community. The $3000 is for real companies with employees but in that case the price shouldn't be a problem.

For the third. The MD Team is very generous with the monthly competition it is not difficult for a hardened Poser hobbyist to win all or the bear part of the license cost. I didn't pay anything, Rosemary didn't pay anything. And you mr aRtBee, will certainly not need to pay anything.

(Minor correction:  I did have to pay, although not the full amount.  I had a 50% coupon from one of the monthly awards.)

Okay! But it was a 50% rebate so you still ended up paying only 50% of 50% = 25% of full price!

But you could easily have taken the full pot. I remember how you persisted again and again "this is not for the competition" allowing the newbees to come forth.