Hello, I've been tinkering with the software ever since I got the Daz Bridge and, first of all, I would like to congratulate VWD and Philemot on an astounding product that, despite all of its technical challenges, allows a newbie to dynamics such as myself to get astounding results with minimal trial and error. Really, thanks guys.

With that out of the way, there are a couple of things that I realize are not the primary scope of the program but seem, nevertheless, feasible for people with greater insight than myself. I think there are many things that could be cumbersome to explain in general but could be easily gleaned from concrete examples, so, I came up with the idea for a Photo Challenge.

The idea is simple: somebody posts a photograph of a scene he would like to create that is beyond his skill with the program and users who like unravelling puzzles post their rendered versions along with the settings and tips that they found relevant when setting it up. To start with, I am having the devil of a time with volumes, so, my first challenge would be how to do this:

Hello Kalosei, your idea is really very, very great!! Regularly, I try to find methods to help the users and I've never found an efficient method. You save me Yes, I can help you to create this scene. What do you want to create, the whole scene: the Pillow, bed sheets. How can I help you? written explanations, video tutorial?

I think this thread will be very active because the principle is simply awesome.

Hi, thanks for the enthusiasm The problematic element, for me, is the pillow, as I have yet to make a volume that doesn't collapse or behave really weirdly just by having gravity turned on. I think a written explanation (with maybe some screenshots) would be great, but a video would be awesome. Also, let me take this chance to thank for all you are doing to make your users comfortable with the software. I assure you, it is much appreciated.

Hello Kalosei, I've made a simple video showing the creation of a pillow and its positionning on the head of Genesis 3.

This video has no sound, because, currently, I don't have a microphone.

The video capture slows down the dynamic positionning and the rotations. Sometimes the video seems curious.

I hope this quick tutorial will help you to make this render.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9c39Rz2Ec-JODk1M25ub1RjQTA

Hello, thank you for the video. Right now, I am away from my rendering machine, but seeing this tutorial, I find your resourcefulness awe-inspiring (I guess that's a programmer's job, though). The way you used two planes to make a pillow really surprised me, and opened quite a few possibilities for pseudo-modelliing with VWD, and the final image certainly met my criteria, so, again, thank you for that.

Now, seeing how the process was dependent on turning off gravity and inertia (I had kinda figured that, through trial and error) I am left with a doubt: following the pillow theme, how would you make and animation with an actor hitting another one with a pillow? Gravity would not be needed, but inertia certainly would and I imagine the pillow would lose its volume fast; would you reccomend stiffening, then--maybe with similar parameters to the ones you used in the string tutorial video?

Hello, There is many time, I wrote a first simulator that didn't have all the functionnalities of VWD, but it had a specific capability : make volumic simulations. When I wrote this first test, some years ago, I created a Simulation library. It is this library I use in VWD and this functionnality exists in VWD but is not implemented. It is important to know that a volumic simulation must occur on a volume, ie a closed mesh. Perhaps, This functionnality could interest some users.

The simulation you would like to do could use this function.

At this time, I made a video showing the result of a volumic simulation using 4 different settings. Here is the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAd4SH_OuWM

That's... that's really, REALLY cool. I can imagine a lot of cases where volumetric simulations may be useful: from someone getting up from a sofa with the cushions recovering their shape to various cases of squeezing (choking someone, squeezing a tube paste, throwing a water balloon--sans explosion). The functionality certainly appeals to me, and I am sure that users more skilled than I would make stunning images and animations with it.

Also, it is one of the few things the Optitex plugin has that VWD doesn't, so it may be nice to put the final nail in the coffin

VirtualWorldDynamics posted at 11:41AM Tue, 20 September 2016 - #4283927

Hello Kalosei, I've made a simple video showing the creation of a pillow and its positionning on the head of Genesis 3.

This video has no sound, because, currently, I don't have a microphone.

The video capture slows down the dynamic positionning and the rotations. Sometimes the video seems curious.

I hope this quick tutorial will help you to make this render.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9c39Rz2Ec-JODk1M25ub1RjQTA

That's brilliant. I hadn't made the connection that removing inertia and gravity could allow to make organic sculpting possible. I definitely have to make a try at it.

I think this is a brilliant idea.

@Kalosei : the first video was very slow. The reason is that I work sometimes with a development version. This version is not parallelized. I've remade the same simulation with a parallelized version, the dynamic deformation and the rotation work faster. Here is the link : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9c39Rz2Ec-JdTdIdlVXMk5EdDQ When you say that Optitex makes volumic simulations, could you give a link to an example made with Optitex. For me, a volumic simulation is a simulation made on a closed mesh filled by volumic elements. In the video that I sent you, the program uses a mesh made by triangles and this mesh is filled inside by tetrahedras. All the segments of these tetrahedras are springs so the mesh keeps its shape depending on the stiffness of these springs. I don't know if Optitex uses this method to make its volumic simulations.

There are several methods to keep to a mesh its initial shape. It is possible to create a node at the barycenter of the mesh and create springs between this barycenter and all the other nodes of the mesh. It is also possible to apply a force in the direction of the normal of each node. This solution is very simple to apply and don't take many time to be calculated (just a force to add to the node). This solution could be used to inflate a balloon for example. This is a inflate function but it allows too to keep the initial shape of mesh. This function could also be used for the pillow fight.

Wow, the speed with which you edited the pillow in this video is nothing short of impressing. Also, 64 threads?! What kind of monster have you managed to enslave inside your computer?

About the Optitex plugin, while I don't have the complete version (I started relatively recently with Daz and by that time it was quite apparent the whole thing was going nowhere fast) I know one of the "premium" parameters it's internal pressure. I don't quite know the nuts and bolts of it, but it's used in the tutorials for their, quite appropiately, pillow set:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y6CZ577tK4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0POm6CV97KU

I believe it's also used in their promo video for their backpack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KheDlUfEQSM

Also, thanks for your explanation, for some reason, imagining a mesh filled with tetrahedrons appealed to the gamer in me (those 4 sided dices can be deadly... when walking barefoot). One thing I don't quite understand, though: if using the second method and applying a vector along the normal of a node, couldn't this be applied to a partially open mesh, or even only to a part of it? Let's say, in keeping with the thread's theme, could we make something like this:

My experiments with clothifying human figures tell me there would be lots of "cloth-like" wrinkles, so, not really (also, rigging would be lost, so animation would be out, unless there was a way to fit a rigged figure as a collider inside of the simulated figure that moved it like an skeleton without deforming it too much... maybe even using a literal skeleton, now that I think of it, as the old one has Victoria 4's rig and should be animatable without any hassle, or even fit inside the original figure and copying its movements from the timeline). But if there was any method to get some internal pressure on the human's body... well, that would also work for simulating punches, having tight clothes on (the infamous "muffin top", for instance) or even a "femenine bounce" with energetig movements. Darn, it's far too late for me to keep on rambling, so I will try and stop here. Hope that wasn't too overwhelming, but this tool really makes me want to push things in unexpected directions. Thanks once again for providing it for us, and for your attention to your clients. Really, it is very much appreciated.

@Kalosei : I don't think I will include volumetric simulations into VWD because this kind of simulation needs a closed mesh and this kind of mesh never exists in the actors we often use.

The function which allows to add a force to a node in the direction of its normal could allow to create this kind of simulation.

I want to include 2 new functions in the new version :

• This inflate function.
• A "Force Field" function which will add a force to a node using a vector starting from a generic dot and going toward this node position. These functions will be usable on all the mesh or only on some vertices of this mesh. These functions will be usable in positive way or in negative way (inflate or deflate) and (push or pull).

Use a cloth simulator to animate a character is not possible, for me (I made many tests). But, I think it is possible to modify locally a character using this method.

For character deformations, it is possible to animate some deformers using dynamics. This method can help to create more realistic movements but a cloth simulation will not be useful for this.

Sorry about not answering sooner, I finally got back home. From what I've been reading in the forums, the new version of VWD looks to be a huge improvement regarding new functionality and ease of use (_really _looking forward to the fabric presets and standardizable behavior--and to anything regarding volumes, obviously). Thanks for everything you are doing for your customer base, this kind of interaction and response to our concerns is much appreciated and I hope it reflects on your sales.

yeh looking for more threads; upgrading soon, and going xeon. I don't need super fast really, so what an E series processor would cost, is about the same as a dual xeon with double the cores