You may be aware Virtual World Dynamics is working on a simulator to work with Poser. It is designed as standalone software so a version for Carrara is possible. What is very important now is for Carrara users to show support because for various reasons it could become an exclusive for Poser. If you dont want that you'd better get involved !

Check out the VWD channel to see what you might miss out on VWD youtube

Post your comments and discussion here so that VWD can see if Carrara users support him.

Full VWD for Poser discussion here HERE

The latest video by VWD - which is linked to in one of his posts near the bottom of the last page - is amazing. The others are too and are not to be missed if realistically animated cloth and hair is of interest.

As things stand today the program allows the user to select items from a Poser scene as a cloth, hair, or collision object. The figure is the normal collision object and can be animated. When the cloth or hair simulation is run, the results are returned to the Poser scene for rendering. (The free demo doesn't return the results to Poser but the simulation can be saved as a video file).

VWD spoke early in the thread about exporting the results from simulations in various file formats so that programs other than Poser could use them. One of the formats (I forget which, it's in the thread) can be converted (with a free converter) to MDD format, which Carrara can read with a plugin.

My hope is that VWD will be able to develop the facility to export simulations in a form, such as this, that Carrara can use. Currently Poser is required and I'm not sure what chance there is of a Carrara version of the program being written soon - or at all. (I don't know either way).

By Carrara version I mean one which would run in Carrara, take elements from a Carrara scene and return simulation results back to that scene. If Poser remains the 'starting point' then I guess the choice of figures for Carrara use is restricted to some extent.

yes it looks wonderful, i'm in :)

@ grimhilda_ My hope is that VWD will be able to develop the facility to export simulations in a form, such as this, that Carrara can use. Currently Poser is required and I'm not sure what chance there is of a Carrara version of the program being written soon - or at all. (I don't know either way)._

I understand the following from VWD. A Carrara version would not be a true plugin integrated into Carrara's interface but the stand alone version can be made to work with Carrara in the same way it now works with Poser. However, due to distribution problems, there is talk of the code being sold to Poser for its integration and distribution in that program. In that case you might NOT get a stand alone version for Carrara.

So we really need to throw weight behind showing VWD there IS a market for a Carrara version of this program. There is one thing for sure , Daz ain't going to give you a dynamic cloth simulator !!!!.

So for example you might mention it in the Daz Forums - try get people to post their thoughts here - though Daz is likely to delete your post as violating their rules ( software promotion)

By the way,in my opinion, this beats strand based hair for animation by a long shot and even if you just want to do static shots,this simulator is giving great results and will help your 'posing clothes and hair' immensely.

Of course we all want this, it is wished by majority of Carrara users for ages! :)

I would get this for sure.

Hi 0oseven,

I appreciate what your saying about trying to prevent Carrara from being left out. I think VWD deserves all the recompense that he can get from the work he must have put in to this. There can't be too many people on the planet who would even know where to begin. (OK I stand to be corrected on that but that's how it seems to me!)

But it would be a pity if it all became Poser's gain at the expense of other software because VWD at the outset envisaged making his program available to users of other software, starting with Poser.

His original idea of selling through Renderosity seems to have been abandoned because he wants to retain control over his method of generating licence keys. Naturally, he wants the best security system possible to prevent a hacked version of his program appearing on the internet for free one day.

The main aim of my post above was to give a quick description of the working of things for anyone just hearing about it for the first time. Thanks for clarifying that a stand alone version could be made to work with Carrara. I thought it would need to be re-written as a plugin. I guess that a stand alone version would only need to read the Carrara scene to pull out the elements it uses. (I say 'only' but it's beyond me!)

If DAZ knows anything about the wishes of its users it must know that a significant number of customers would love to have more in the way of dynamic clothes and hair. I sometimes wondered whether better Bullet Physics would be one of the big selling points of a new version of Carrara. The benefit to DAZ would be that probably many Studio users would buy into Carrara for that feature. Sadly, if I take that line of thought further then the provision of VWD's program for Carrara could take away from DAZ a major development opportunity. As we all know, however, what DAZ is interested in doing is anyone's guess.

In fairness to DAZ who pays the bills for its own Forums I don't think I could discuss VWD too much over there!

EDITED TO CLARIFY: re-reading my last comments I might have given the impression that I don't mind not having this for Carrara. On the contrary, I've wanted it from day one!

@ grimhilda "In fairness to DAZ who pays the bills for its own Forums I don't think I could discuss VWD too much over there!'

I don't think they'll let you anyway - I believe headwax tried that and posts were deleted BUT always worth a try !!!!

Me have stuff deleted ? ;) I have had so many posts deleted recently that I cant remember them all :) It's daz's cricket bat, so their choice. I think that it's not in daz's best interest to have any product that allows users to easily make or change things that they would be otherwise 'forced' to buy. That includes Carrara itself. And dynamic cloth etc. What I would like to see is seamless transfer between Carrara and poser, that would enable this product to be used in both, but open other endless possibilities. Dreams! I do stills, so animation is not attractive to me, but my stills are full of unwrinkled clothes, so I am keen to grab this.