I'm looking for someone who can help with conforming clothing for V4.

I'm working with a modeller who made a long-sleeve dress for V4. We turned it into a conforming figure file and it mostly works, but we're having trouble getting the joints to work properly. We've tried the usual tricks of adjusting the innerMatSphere or hiding V4's body parts, but some parts of the dress (such as the inside of the shoulder) aren't bending properly. (The dress is short enough that we're not worrying about how the dress moves with V4's legs.)

If someone can help us figure this out, we'll give them a cut of the sales of this dress.

Please contact me or send me a sitemail if you're interested.

Why conforming instead dynamic ? Dynamic clothes dont need to transfer morphs, dynamic dont know what is a poke, dynamic have realistics mouvments.

Why conforming clothing instead of dynamic clothing? The short answer is that I've found that most Poser users would prefer to add clothing to the scene, conform the clothing, pose, and render the scene. This is a lot quicker than loading dynamic clothing, posing the figure, opening the Cloth Room, calculating a cloth simulation, running the simulation, and then rendering the one frame they need for their image.

Be honest, at some point you thought "this can't be anywhere near as complicated as modeling cars"

Have you tried the 'Magnetize Clothing' poses that come with V4? The figure has some ERC'ed magnets, and these poses apply the same system to clothing. They're most often needed where the clothing fits closely in areas of the figure that are magnet controlled.

EnglishBob posted at 2:43AM Fri, 18 September 2015 - #4229124

Have you tried the 'Magnetize Clothing' poses that come with V4? The figure has some ERC'ed magnets, and these poses apply the same system to clothing. They're most often needed where the clothing fits closely in areas of the figure that are magnet controlled.

I totally agree. This was the problem I was having using her. I didn't know about the magnetize clothing option. It was in my runtime in the Pose folder the whole time.

duanemoody posted at 9:01AM Fri, 18 September 2015 - #4229094

Be honest, at some point you thought "this can't be anywhere near as complicated as modeling cars"

Cars and aircraft are simple compared to clothing since cars don't have to conform to a human figure... though that might be an interesting model.

Thanks for the suggestion about using the Magnetize Clothing poses. I deleted them a long time ago because I never thought I'd use them, but luckily I still had the V4 Base installer file. I tried applying all of the 10 Magnetize Clothing poses and none of them worked- the mesh still breaks around the shoulder area.

Try adjusting the outer mat sphere and see if that helps the problem. I'm no pro with rigging by any means, but that may work.

Have you tried weight-mapping the joints? It is simpler than I thought, once you get into it and it smooths over a lot of problems!

Can you show a wire frame of the dress mesh? Is the tearing consistent? Have you tried adding a JCM?

Expect an answer in about 2 hrs from now. Then I"ll be behind my Poser PC's. best regards, Tony

I tried adjusting the Outer Mat Sphere and that didn't make a difference. And I've never needed to use JCM's on clothing before, but then again, the issue might be with the mesh and a JCM might be needed.

I gave a copy of the dress to Tony Vilters earlier today so let's see what he thinks.

Looking at it now.

It looks to me like the vertices have not been welded together where the sleeve joins with the shirt. So instead of one vertex that you think you see in the modelling software, there might be two, one that is a part of the sleeve and one for the shirt.

It looks like mainly a grouping issue actually. The fall off zones can only work on mesh that is in their group .. if the group is too small or a weird shape it will do weird things where the edges don't match up. If you can post a picture of the mesh with groups showing I can tell for sure. (or the uvs colored by group). Its possible there is some other issues with joint deformers and unwelded verts going on as well, hard to say.

Incidentally .. the elbow bulge there? that is a classic issue. you'll need a fix morph or JCM for it. You will also need a fix for rcollar and lcollar up, when her arms are raised up. the clothing always gets sucked into her body then and needs fiddling. You may also want a LoosenChest morph, that is another common problem area on v4.

About the magnetise poses - you only need one. The others are for the other nine v4's you might have in the scene. The pose is locked to the internal bodynumber, which changes each time you load a new v4, thus the need for magnetize poses for v4 1, v4 2, etc etc etc. I guess they figured you didn't need 11 clothed women in one scene though lol

You can PM me here if you want me to have a look at the actual mesh

PS ... If you have my book this is chapter 6 stuff :)

VanishingPoint posted at 8:03PM Mon, 21 September 2015 - #4229162

duanemoody posted at 9:01AM Fri, 18 September 2015 - #4229094

Be honest, at some point you thought "this can't be anywhere near as complicated as modeling cars"

Cars and aircraft are simple compared to clothing since cars don't have to conform to a human figure... though that might be an interesting model.

Thanks for the suggestion about using the Magnetize Clothing poses. I deleted them a long time ago because I never thought I'd use them, but luckily I still had the V4 Base installer file. I tried applying all of the 10 Magnetize Clothing poses and none of them worked- the mesh still breaks around the shoulder area.

It's hard to tell, but the problem you are seeing looks like the deformers for the right arm are deforming the right collar, but not the chest. So, when you move the right arm, the deformer stretches across the entire right collar, but since it will not effect the chest group, because it will not span two groups, then the mesh deform gets... borked up as the right collar attempts to follow the deformer and it's very, extremely, close neighbor doesn't know anything about where they are all going for lunch...

On V4, there are two extremely problematic areas - The Shoulders and the Thighs. The first, because there's just not much real-estate there to work with those deformers, the latter because there's bajillion-hokum deformers trying to work at the same time the standard rigging is trying to compensate for... too little real-estate. (Near the hip region.)

1. OK, there's no wire, but first you need to check the mesh. Do you have a good, dense, mesh in and around that shoulder area? Also, check the topography as that will only add to your problems if it's not lending itself well to how the region needs to deform.

2. JCM's would be a good idea, but only after you maximize the utility of the standard rigging. What version of Poser is this for? If for later versions and you're sticking with standard Poser rigging, do not forget about your options, specifically the ability to use capsule instead of sphere deformers. See if that helps, if not you can easily switch them back. Do not forget about Bulge controls. Try them out to see if they can help.

3. On "Magnetize Pose" - The reason there are a bunch of Magnetize V4 poses in the library is NOT because they are each different. They are numbered to prevent issues when using the poses on multiple figures. Every single one of them is the same, but they're numbered so Poser doesn't get confused with the scripts/crosstalk/whatever issues. Using one on the Dress is enough. However, you have to use it properly - Start a new scene, load the v4 character, load the dress, conform the dress, select the Body channel of the dress, click the Magnetize V4 pose. That's it, just one click. By the way, you can select any of the Magnetize V4 pose numbers, it doesn't matter, just so long as you don't again try to use the same numbered magnetize pose for another figure in the same scene.

NOTE: It may not be appropriate for you to transfer the deformers (even if it's just a couple) using the Magentize V4 pose for a figure for resale. Instead, instruct your customers to do so, themselves, and just use it on your end for QC and making better JCMs.

1. On Groups - Lyra's post is likely correct on focusing on grouping issues and, if nothing else seems to work, regrouping the figure may be the best option for you. To me, it doesn't look like separated/split verts,but just the standard V4 shoulder-mess with the collar groups and native deformers. If someone tried to do a straight transfer of groups, using something like Poser's native regrouping in the Setup room or an automated process, as with Autogroup Manager (standalone product) then it's likely that the group is just too small and it's not possible to get a good deformer zone with native rigging. V4's shoulders are a mess and always have been, but that doesn't mean they're impossible to model around, it just takes a bit of tweaking, depending on the geometry/topology and how much stuff you have to mess with. IMO, given blind, extend the collar zones a little bit down the arm, to allow for smother transition, as long as they are not entirely outside of the collar group of the figure, see if you can get a little more room towards the interior of the figure and then work with bulge controls and custom JCMs (after any Magnetize Pose has been applied, if you're going that route). You can try a capsule defomer, to see if that helps, too, if you're going for later Poser versions that support it. (Probably best to just cough up some blood and work on custom JCMs though. :) )

2. Don't forget about magnets! V4 is loaded with them and some very good artists have used them with extremely good effect to compensate for tough spots in very detailed clothing. (AS comes to mind. Great stuff, great use of custom magnets rigged with JCMs.)

On "arms up" vs "collars up" on V4 - When the collars are moved in the "up" position, V4's chest region attempts to follow the deformer, naturally, and this produces an unsightly bulge to either side. When the collars go down, it's a bit better, but it can cause creases in tight meshes. (Luckily, the human collar doesn't go as far down as V4's!) When the "arms" are moved up, independently of the shoulder group, that's usually not too much of an issue, but moving them down and, especially, forward can definitely be an issue, as you see here, due to the above issues already discussed.

VanishingPoint posted at 10:27PM Mon, 21 September 2015 - #4229162

Thanks for the suggestion about using the Magnetize Clothing poses. I deleted them a long time ago because I never thought I'd use them, but luckily I still had the V4 Base installer file. I tried applying all of the 10 Magnetize Clothing poses and none of them worked- the mesh still breaks around the shoulder area.

The magnetize poses are essential to getting V4 clothing to fit well. One is supposed to apply the pose to the clothing; the pose with no number if there is a single V4 in the scene, and the numbered ones if there is more than one, with the number corresponding to the order in which they were added, to avoid crosstalk issues.

Use quads only on the model and no planar stuff or tris if possible. You will get better bending.