@bopperthijs I had the same trouble. Either rename v4 or install vwd in the programfiles sm directory.

@wimvdb : Your idea of bug list is excellent.
I could start writing a TODO list.
every person who wants to add an action, could take the entire list and copy it to the message. This person can add to the list by starting the bug info by TODO, but above all keep the list until all the bugs are fixed.
And personally, I take the list in the following message by putting TODO for bugs corrected.
what do you think about that.

**
@Biscuits : Looking at the program, I realized that some tests were poorly positioned and did not do their job. I made a lot of changes fairly quickly, perhaps too much.

• The operations that require some selected vertices should be resolved.
• If you have problems on functions while vertices are already selected, could you list them?
• "And the hair parameters do not re-open once closed". Does this happen every time, you have not managed to make a hair simulation?
• After a simulation,VWD closes because there Is nothing to show. The cache file for the dress or the hair is not written and so it can not be animated in VWD. If I write the .DYN file, you just have to close and reopen Poser to integrate the simulation into its interface. This would remove all my protection.
• The video file is in the same directory as the program, that's right. This is the video that allows to visualize the animation that was made. This will last only a few weeks, the time to finish the final version.
• For now, there is no way to delete the files in the "Exchange" directory automatically, it must be emptied manually. I can create a button that will do it  if you want. I can also remove from that directory, all files with more than a certain number of days, at every start.
• As stated in the documentation, if the animation occurs for a particular character and with an animation length different from the previous one, the program will ask to Poser, the displacements of the vertices. If the animation for this character have the same length, it will be played in VWD. If this animation is not the one desired, you can press on the "Record" button in the "Collision parameters" tab to record the animation for this character from Poser.**

**@****bopperthijs and @**Biscuits and @everyone : In the documentation, I spoke of this file error problem, but it was for me a little problem. I realize that you all have import problems. Could you tell me if you have every time a UTC-8 decoding problem? I will work on this problem. Looking on the Internet, some did not hesitate to use the word "puzzle". It can happen that communication between Poser and VWD is a little slow. I set a time-out to 15 seconds to read the OBJ file. This delay may not be enough. if you regularly import OBJ files with this error because of this delay, I will increase it.

**@ Carrara users : I started looking at ways to export a MDD file. I think this should not be a worry.
**

@ Carrara users : I started looking at ways to export a MDD file. I think this should not be a worry.

**
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**great news thank you ! **

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**@ Carrara users : I started looking at ways to export a MDD file. I think this should not be a worry.
**

Awesome!  Thank you very much :)

@VWD

After an acces denied error, you can't reach the hair parameters and after you generated the springs one can't reach the hair parameters.

If you want to save your poser scene when you've been working with vwd, the save location always reverts to the exchange folder.

I think it should refer to the folder where you saved the pz3 file the first place, like your project workfolder for example.

Referencing it to the exchange folder one might make a mistake save it there and then empty the exchange folder because  you think you saved your scene in the workfolder.

Yes a Empty exchange folder button would be great!

Also a go to exchange folder button and open the folder would be handy.

(like the start vwd and stop vwd buttons)

I am a little worried to have no message.
I hope you have been able to experiment the program.
The purpose of the demo version is to show the program's philosophy. I understand that you are disappointed not to be able to save the animations for the moment, but I work hard on the final version.

as suggested by wimvdb, I will start the TODO list.

TODO: Verify the existence of selected vertices for all functions which need selected vertices.
TODO: PAN function.
TODO: increase the wait time for reading OBJ files to 20s.
TODO: Delete files in the directory EXCHANGE? what method use?
TODO: Add the simulation parameters in each RECORDED IMPORT (.RIP)
TODO: Add the date in the name of each RECORDED IMPORT (.RIP)
TODO: Resetting the current simulation
TODO: Delete an item from the current simulation
TODO : Write animation files in various formats (PC2, MDD, ...)

Here is a preliminary list. The best is that every person who wants to add an item to this list, take it fully from its last state.
Personally, I also will take it fully by scratching completed items.

@Biscuits : you are right, the PAN function is really useful.

I certainly will do an update for the demo version during the next week.

@Biscuits :

**"**After an acces denied error, you can't reach the hair parameters and after you generated the springs one can't reach the hair parameters.".What kind of "access denied" have you had, did you more precision?
Hair dynamic parameters are set before attaching them to the head of the character. Changing springs of hair, or clothes, once generated, modifies a large number of tables generating problems not so easy to correct. This may be a TODO function.
My approach to the simulation was to test, quite to redo the introduction of simulation parameters, until a perfect simulation. At this time, this simulation is recorded and will be automatically reused thereafter.

"If you want to save your poser scene when you've been working with vwd, the save location always reverts to the exchange folder." For me the "EXCHANGE" directory is a work directory, nothing else. You are right, currently, the POSER final  scene is still in that directory. We must therefore copy the .PZ3 file with all its .DYN files in another directory to save it. This is certainly not the right method. In this view, it lacks a way to copy and rename the POSER files once simulated file. One can envisage a button named "Register POSER scene in...."
When doing simulation combos (clothes + hair), this is the last POSER file witch is to be saved.

"Also a go to exchange folder button and open the folder would be handy." Excuse me, I do not understand what you want. Do you want that I open an Explorer to see the directory contents?

Have you been able to make animations that suit you despite the problems encountered.

 I am a little worried to have no message.
I hope you have been able to experiment the program.

soon it is the weekend here and we will be able to play ;) 

we have to sit down and go through the instructions first - they are great instructions thanks, but will need to pay attention while reading them! 

@vwd yes opening explorer to exchange, i made a shortcut on my desktop, but to have it as a button like start vwd, would be ideal!

i send you a video in site mail, its a bit stiff, not sure how to make it flow more naturally yet, if you have suggestions let me know! :)

I have gotten the acces denied, when using the wrong order of buttons.

ah ok makes sense when you generated the springs one cannot longer edit the rootsglue.

i have another suggestion, for selection, a lasso tool, because the rectangular shape is often very akward to select hair shapes.

@headwax start the manual at the end it has examples, that is easier to learn, once you got the examples , start to read from the top, then it makes more sense.

Thanks biscuits ! 

 Hi All,

Just a quick visit here to show my first attempts with this excellent program.  I'm not too familiar with Poser and don't have many clothing items to choose from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I795sG4qYs&feature=youtu.be  

Wow..that is pretty amazing! :) Great job with the animation! Thanks for posting this :)

@Grimhilda : Thank you for your video on youtube.

Here is the new TODO list:

TODO : Find a method of removing file naming errors. (UTF8 decoding errors)

TODO: Verify the existence of selected vertices for all functions which need selected vertices
TODO: PAN function.
TODO: increase the wait time for reading OBJ files to 20s.
TODO: Delete files in the directory EXCHANGE? what method use?
TODO: Add the simulation parameters in each RECORDED IMPORT (.RIP)
TODO: Add the date in the name of each RECORDED IMPORT (.RIP)
TODO: Resetting the current simulation
TODO: Delete an item from the current simulation
TODO : Write animation files in various formats (PC2, MDD, ...)

TODO : A polygonal and "lasso" selection tools

TODO : A button to delete the files from the "Exchange" directory.

TODO : A button to visualize the contents of the "Exchange" directory.

If you have any additional requests, please feel free to tell me.

I have published two new videos on Youtube.
The first aims to demonstrate the mix between flexibility and rigidity asked by certains tissues such as historical clothes.
The second aims to show (at the top of the simulation;-))), an earrings animation and the possibility of applying the flexibility (slightly exaggerated) on high hair as shown in the documentation.

I will definitely send a new demo version for the weekend of the next week. This release fixes some bugs from the initial demo version. The final version should be ready about 15 days later. In about 3 weeks.

Thank you, Digitell, for your kind words.

There was no skill on my part in creating the animations.  I simply chose Alyson2 in the Walk Designer and made an adjustment to keep the arms out from the body in case they interfered.  For the running simulation, I moved the 'run' slider a little from the centre position.  In each simulation I kept the body in the 'T' pose for 15 frames before walking or running.

Since the figure and clothing came with Poser 10 (and 9 ?), I think others could easily repeat these simulations for themselves - they were run at the VWD default settings.

@ VirtualWorldDynamics.  Thank you also - I was hoping that showing some results would not be annoying to you and I wanted to give good feedback.

I used screen capture software to record the simulation as they took place.

Oooh those new videos are so great!

Thank you for the tips in sitemail, going to try it out.

I was worried about this working for me as I have an older laptop, but I am loving this so far. I managed to animate a layered skirt and just finished with Armaseda hair (lots of curls). I have to learn to be patient and wait for each step to finish as I have some lag with my system, but if I do things in the correct order it works. As is you will have problems with people hitting buttons too soon or in the wrong order -- are you planning some kind of error catching? Some of us idiots can break anything. :)

I see PAN is in your todo list. How about rotate, or is that too difficult? I like the idea of a lasso for selection too.

hair animation

@fivecat Awesome results! Middlemouse button is rotate. And mousewheel is zoom.

Thanks, biscuits. I had figured out the zoom. I haven't read the entire manual yet, I was too excited to get started!

Another experiment, this time with Biscuits' Superstar dress on the Star figure. I tried to change the dynamic control settings, but haven't figured out how to stiffen the material of the dress.  I had some trouble with a couple medium length, straight hairs, also. I tried your method of fluffing the strands first, but the hair strands were intersecting badly and the script choked. I'm sure there's some setting that I haven't discovered that will improve the performance.

A second try with the same animation and dress. In the Dynamic parameters I lowered Stretch, increased the stiffness to .1 and in Extended stiffness I lowered the softness to about .04.

These settings better preserved the shape of the skirt. I need to experiment more to keep the cloth from stretching out of shape.

@fivecat : Bravo!, that's exactly how you should proceed.
Thank you for your videos, they show fluid results and that really please me a lot. In terms of fluidity, everything depends on the result you want to achieve.
If you would like more rigidity on the Biscuits's dress,  you can use both types of rigidity simultaneously. The rigidity by neighborhood will help to keep all separated parts of the habit and the rigidity by extension will stiffen the parts that seem too soft. Please note that rigidity can quickly become too large. An value of 3 in extension with a softness of 0.01, generally gives very rigid clothes. It all depends on the mesh size. For example for the dress you show, you can keep the ridigité as you put it currently and add to the bottom of the dress, a rigidity with an extension of 3 and softness of 0.05 for example. I trust you to do the tests. Global and local stiffening possibilities are almost limitless.

@Grimhilda : Thank you again for your video because it shows the difference between the cloth room in Poser and VWD. This video shows both calculation speed and fluidity of the simulator. I personally have always been disappointed with the clothes animations in Poser. One could use it only for static positions and nothing more.

**
I'm working on updating the demo program.
The Selection by Lasso works.
I think I secure the interface buttons. I will await your feedback.
Regarding the removal of files from the "Exchange" directory, I think, as said Biscuits, that a button would be practical. For cons, I would want not invade the interface with buttons that have no direct relationship with the simulation. Do you think that a new "Utilities" tab would be a good solution. This tab would have the default settings of the program and some utilities buttons.
**

Thanks for your suggestions on rigidity. I will experiment more today.

A utilities tab sounds like a good solution. Are we going to be able to share settings for specific garments? That is saved in the .RIP file, is that correct? It would be nice to be able to share settings once we get them working well for a piece of cloth, including vertice selection and grouping. I'm still making my way through the manual as I experiment, so forgive me if I bring up things answered already.

I'm looking forward to the next demo!

Helios hair

I wanted to try Helios hair because it starts out with the strands very separated. I lowered the softness and I think that may be why I got the result I did. I think the tubes could be snakes for a medusa-like hair. Wouldn't that be cool?

Utilities Tab would be a good idea.

Wonderful videos fivecat!!!

I'm having troubles with baggy boobies in dressmodels. lol

I tried stretch, stiffness, rigidify, gravity, but I can't get the fabric pull tight to the skin.

Any suggestions?

Baggy boobs. Sigh. I've tried a lot of settings, too.

@**Biscuits and @**fivecat : I did some tests and I do not find it completely abnormal movement.
By stiffening the dress, she remains more glued to the body.
To resolve your problem, the simplest way is to select a broad band of cloth vertices near the Victoria4's chest and use an elastic effect with a value of 90% or a little less. You will see that the dress remains pressed on the chest.

@Carrara users : In seeking generation methods for .MDD files, I have found a free script in Python that converts a .PC2 file towards a .MDD file. I think this script will be very helpful to export animations towards CARRARA.

**I had some difficulties with the final program. This will delay slightly the next demo version that will be sent at the end of the weekend.
I am waiting for information from Renderosity about the possibilities of sending the final version to each person having bought VWD.
**

I've had the baggy boob problem in the Poser cloth room too. The mesh is built with boobs in, and as the simulation progresses the mesh drops and you get the baggy boobs. I've found that reducing stretch in both poser and vwd helps .

Yes it worked, increased stiffness, decreased stretch and  I selected the vertices of the entire top part elastic to 90%.

Woooooooooot!

Thank you!

Looking good. I think the stretch setting is the most important to prevent saggy boob syndrome. Stiffness can preserve some of the mesh, so pretty flounces are still there.

Thanks to those who are posting videos and screen shots.

Everything is looking amazing!

This reminds me of how many other things came to be improved in recent years.   I remember when computer screens showed only sixteen colours.  Printers used nine pins to strike ink-soaked ribbons and made poor looking images. Digital cameras made blocky pictures and were too slow for many subjects.  One by one all these things were perfected to the point where they don't need to be any better. 

Now clothing and hair simulations are being done with greater than ever realism in the Poser world.  It's great to see it happening!

A couple requests after playing. The ability to add morphs while simulating would be nice, so to go from a normal figure to a morphed figure would be a nice feature. Also,  to save settings would be great. And being able to stop the simulation and change some settings without having to do the whole add figure and cloth again. I know you can already change dynamics on the fly, but I want to be able to change more without having to do the whole select vertices again for every trial.

What you've done so far is incredible.

 

@Carrara users : In seeking generation methods for .MDD files, I have found a free script in Python that converts a .PC2 file towards a .MDD file. I think this script will be very helpful to export animations towards CARRARA.

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**thanks for that appreciated!
**

@Grimhilda : Thank you very much for your comment. It's part of the things that, sometimes, touches you to the deepest self. I had a great pleasure to write this program, but I confess that I have a few projects that I hope to achieve. My ultimate goal would be to animate a virtual character so we can ask the question whether the animation is real or not.

**@**fivecat : I will never have access to the Poser's morphs during simulation.
By cons, it is very easy to create an animation in which a character starts without morphs and ends up with the morph. If you want, for example, transform a cloth for a character on which it was expected no adjustment, an animation using 2 keys and 30 frames is enough to transform this cloth.

**In the next version of demo, the .RIP file will be named with a date to the minute, so there will not have erased files, as before. It will also include the recording of simulation parameters. The .RIP files can of course be exchanged between users. We must remember that they are also editable with an editor like Notepad. I plan to write a .RIP file modification window for changing all settings with an ergonomical method in order to restart a simulation without redo the selections.
**

**
@biscuits : I am glad that the plating works as you want, for your dress. In fact, I had not planned to integrate this elastic function, but it is really convenient to get certain effects or correct some errors. I thank very much the person who gave me the idea to add this functionality to the program.**

**The difficulty I encountered in writing the final program is raised.
Everything is proceeding as planned.
**

I'm so excited to be able to make mesh hair dynamic.

I'll be first in line to buy when you finish.

 I thank very much the person who gave me the idea to add this functionality to the program.

I have to thank you for implementing it, it was one of the features I liked in marvelous designer and I very missed in poser.

SIncerly yours,

Bopper

From default to bodybuilder combined with a pose.

The keyframes were the secret to get it to work!

I can't wait till the final version!

 @ VWD.  I think you can be sure that there is a lot of admiration for what you've done even though many others who are interested may choose not to comment.

As for creating realistic animation, another development that is now coming to be within the grasp of the ordinary person at home is motion capture.  There is a lot of excitement about an affordable motion capture set-up called Perception Neuron.

With such a device and realistic cloth and hair, excellent results will surely follow.

@bopperthijs : Excuse me, I did not remember that it was you who asked if it was possible to integrate this functionality. I did not want to go back in the messages, because one day, I lost my current message by trying to do so. I have increased the possible potential value to 150% in order to increase the shape of the mesh when using a morph which increases the size of the character and not to have too much tension on the springs.

**@**Grimhilda : Thank you for your message. I have read your message carefully because I am extremely interested in the motion capture. I did not know "Perception Neuron". I am extremely impressed with their product that is also reasonable in price. Among the products that I would like to do if I have the opportunity, there is the management of a dynamic skin of the characters. I mean, a skin that deforms with the movements and collisions. There is also a motion capture correction tool using dynamic, which, in my opinion, is the only way to get realistic movements. I feel that with a product like "Perception Neuron", the correction becomes almost useless. You are right, 3D animation has a bright perspective.

**I submitted the update of the demo version.
I made some changes in the documentation.
To simplify, access roping is done by the small "L" button in the "Vertices tools" and the activation of the Pan view is done using the right mouse button with the CTRL key.
I started to implement the generation of the personal code. Apparently, there are some problems. Feel free to tell me if the program crashes. The only solution is to close the Task Manager, sorry. This function will be corrected quickly. I'm preview after having all prepared and by trying the program on several machines.
**

Seems that the skin pokes through, i tried increasing collision depth to 0.4, but still no effect. It is a very tight dress though.

Pan and Lasso function work great!!! Thank you!!!

(send you 2 sitemails)

Question

Is it intended for cloth item and hair item to be simulated  at the same time?

My experience is that after importing character [ collision object ] and clothing [ cloth item ] the import of Hair Object button is greyed out and therefore cannot be used.

How do I achieve animation of both clothes and hair as seen in VWD's demo videos ? - I expect I've missed something ! 

* *

@Carrara users : In seeking generation methods for .MDD files, I have found a free script in Python that converts a .PC2 file towards a .MDD file. I think this script will be very helpful to export animations towards CARRARA.

** **

** **Whilst this is very good news - I'm wondering if there is any hope cloth simulator will actually run from inside Carrara or is it intended to create simulation Poser and export animation to Carrara ? - which is great if you like using Poser !!!

**A true plugin to Carrara would be a more attractive purchase to C users. However the export capability will be better than nothing. This Question is really for VWD. **

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**thanks for that appreciated!
**

I think a boobs in pushup bra morph for the woman, would be good to work with the clothes.  Not many women go around braless in fancy dresses.

@0oseven : Do not worry, you did not miss anything.
In fact, the demo version does not save the simulation. In the final version, an animation of a dynamic object can be used as a collision object for the next simulation. It is necessary to wait for this release to succeed to chain simulations to obtain a complete animation.

I understand the problem you raise. However, you must understand that, for me, it is also a priority issue. I want to first have a product that works perfectly in Poser to validate the concept of the simulator. I think then generate, in the same environment, an exportation in several file formats so that the simulations are available in different software. And only then, I would start looking at how to integrate the simulator in different software. I understand that users of Carrara are interested in having this plugin or script in their environment and I can promise you to look first on the integration of the simulator in Carrara.
Let me ask you a question:
Do you know if the scripting functions are identical in Daz Studio and in Carrara? Looks like the pages dealing the scripts methods are the same.

**@****estherau : I think we should separate the Poser morphs and the simulator. I think that VWD is flexible enough to adapt to the morphs during simulation or follow a deformation of the body being animated. I think, for cons, it is not the responsibility of the simulator to create morphs. I intend to work on a flexible deformation of the skin. This is a tool I will begin to study, I hope, at the end of the year. Even so, the program will adapt itself to the morphs of Poser at the beginning and during the animation.
**

Some more experimenting, this time with Biscuits' Tormented Fashion dress. I wanted to try morphing. For the more extreme Heavy V4 morph, I gave it fifteen frames for the morph, and then started the pose.

Youtube

@ VWD    quote "Let me ask you a question:
Do you know if the scripting functions are identical in Daz Studio and in Carrara? Looks like the pages dealing the scripts methods are the same.

No I have no experience in this area  - but I will post the question on Carrara forum and report back here.

Thankyou for answering my other questions - forgive our impatience ! We appreciate your demo is work in progress and you must follow strict development path. I am happy to wait and it will not stop me buying the Poser version when released. Just nice to know it may eventually come as a plug in for Carrara.

I think I will have some comment on the simulator "workflow" in the future  but need to use it more first. The most concerning thing for me at the moment is not being able to "clear" the animation in order to run again with different setting/s, without deleting everything and starting the whole process again.

**I think you are already working on this improvement. **

**cheers
**

@0oseven : I understand your problem about the fact of starting the whole process.
This is, of course, something that I thought. By cons, I can tell you that this problem is not so easy to solve.
When a conventional simulator want to animate a cloth, it takes a mesh ready for this type of simulation, called a dynamic cloth that have all its vertices connected. It generates springs that allow it to stiffen this cloth by always using the same method and changes the stiffness parameters to suit the desired effect. This stiffening can be changed at any time to achieve a different effect. In the case of VWD, the program gives the user the possibility to generate a large number of springs which are useful for rigifidier the coat, but also serve to hold the elements together. To make all these configurable elements, it would be necessary to have a dynamic interface that could take into account all the springs added depending on their effect.
I can assure you that this is a concern for which I would like to find a solution that satisfies both the users and the poor developer.**
**

@VirtualWorldDynamics:  I'm finding the rip file convenient as I work with one piece of clothing and try different settings. It's not as convenient as returning to the start of the simulation like you would in the cloth room, but I find setting up a simulation pretty quick and easy now so it's not that big of a deal.

I've been experimenting with vertice selection and just tinkering with stuff to see what it does. I was following your tutorial on using rigidify to keep a bun from collapsing, only I was using a different hair.  For the few frames I could simulate before my computer choked, it was working. I think each hair will need very specific settings -- my problems seem to be from hair strands that are already packed in close and touching. If I spent more time with selecting vertices and adding to vertice groups I'd probably have better luck. The lasso is nice, but for precise selection the SHIFT works very well.

Would you like any help editing your documentation? When I first started I found some instructions confusing, but I managed to figure it out. I'm still a bit confused about the interaction of the general dynamic settings and the grouped vertice rigidify, as they each have softness settings.