Hello all - Is there anybody who has compiled Stretch / Softness ratings for specific materials?

I find it very difficult to, for instance, make denim or cotton clothing because all the dynamic cloth acts like slippery silk.

According to Gérald it is impossible for VWD to predict how any individual mesh will respond to the 'cloth' spring parameters, because the vertex density and structure of every model is different.

What VWD would need for this is an analysis module to measure those mesh characteristics, and then calculate a 'normalizing' conversion factor to compensate for these differences.

But that wouldn't work for every model either, because different parts of one single model can have different structures, so the converted settings would still not be correct for all parts of such a model.

The only thing we can do now is study the structure of individual meshes we want to drape ourselves, and learn by trial and error what effect the settings in VWD have on those meshes.

I think a 'catalogue' of images of typical meshes at different densities, patches of, say, 10x10 cm, with appropriate VWD settings for those meshes would probably help shorten that arduous process tremendously.

Erik

@Leonides02: You are right, it is not easy to find the right settings in VWD. The reply made by Erik is really perfect because he gives the explanation of the difficulties found to predict the behavior of a cloth. An analysis module that would estimate the settings for a cloth and a wanted behavior will be very difficult to write. To predict by advance how will behave a cloth, it would be necessary to know the size of its mesh structure. VWD has a subdivider which works by using a defined size. It would be useful to have a decimator also using a defined size. By making these two functions working together, It SHOULD be possible to always work with the same mesh structure size. This should resolve all our problems. Unfortunately, perfection does not exist. :-) But I still want to work on this decimator.

Thank you Erik, for your help.

Perhaps there is a way to add in spring drop down menu that would auto set things to something folks MAY find useful. It may not be a perfect solution but a drop down having:

Very Stiff, Stiff, Medium Stiff, and so on until you get to Silky

Your right, everyone's meshes differ. I use Dusk and Dawn from Hivewire so I always try to build my meshes to as close an approximation as I can to the figures which helps when making rigged clothing to cut back on poke throughs and all that.

Hello, I agree with all of you. It would be very useful to have a preset system for affect a behaviour to a cloth.

@RAMWolff: I suppose you have made many tests on different clothes using the same settings in VWD. The behaviour has certainly been very different depending on the clothes you tested. In Fact, I cannot use the word Stiff or Soft by a generic way, because the Stiff settings will be stiff for a cloth and soft for another one.

I have to expand the settings to be able to rigidify more a cloth having a very small mesh. This kind of meshes don't exist in dynamic clothes.

I tried a method to rigidify a cloth without changing the rigidity settings. You can add a "Nail to collision" on the part you want to rigidify using a very soft value: 0.5 for example. The cloth will move more slowly on the body of the character. This method can also resolve the issues on the armpits when the animation or the pose moves the arm inside the body.

I know VWD still has to progress on this part, It will be the challenge after the GPU programming.

You're doing GPU programming ???? YYYYAAAYYYY !!!!

Okay, nobody disturb Gerald while he's programming

Here's an example of a mesh that really is too coarse to work nicely in VWD

No matter what settings I tried, the sleeves were too rigid to bend properly. So every time there was one elbow sticking out through the fabric, and the other sleeve kept falling away from the arm completely on every try.

Luckily I could nudge that uncooperative sleeve back over the arm using the (absolutely brilliant) Dynamic draping option, but still, MANY repairs in ZBrush were necessary to make that coat look like this.

That particular coat is one of the older (unrigged) OptiTex freebees, so originally intended for dynamic draping, but clearly in need of subdivision before sending it to VWD!

I would have saved myself a lot of time if I had thought of checking the structure of that mesh earlier.

Cheers!

Erik

And here is the very same coat, draped in VWD using exactly the same settings, but this time I subdivided it in DAZ Studio before sending it to VWD (Loop type, level one) .

Same VWD settings, same coat, same pose, but giving a completely different result!

ONLY because the mesh of the coat had many more vertices for VWD to play with.

Much better drape, and hardly any errors to repair in ZBrush after draping.

Cheers!

Erik

The pose in the image below may not look like anything special, but that freebee Optitex coat in its original form was impossible to drape that way in VWD.

The collar collapsed, the shoulders crept up to her ears, and the sleeves simply exploded, whatever settings I tried.

And all that time I was struggling without any success, I was just two clicks away from a perfect result: Edit Object - Convert to SubD

Cheers!

Erik

Erik,

The two latest images use certainly the same mesh size. Could you tell us the size of this mesh.

Thank you for these tests and these images.

Gérald

Hi Gérald,

The original OptiTex mesh has 6881 vertices, 13499 faces, the subdivided one has 27196 vertices, and 53990 faces (according to MeshLab).

It was just an example of a garment that in its original form, although created to be draped dynamically in OptiTex, does not drape well in VWD with ANY setting for the cloth parameters.

That is of course not a problem caused by VWD at all, but it is something to check, and if necessary correct, before loading stuff into VWD.

This simple check will save a lot of frustration and wasted time if you happen to catch a 'bad one'.

That's all.

Cheers!

Erik

Not a fan of the OptiTex meshes as they look fake when you get at the wrong angles; even thin cloth has depty. ... Of course it's an issue of plenty of other products. One thing that can improve the look of the mesh once back in studio, is adding sub D to it; a smother tends to make it look worse, but not every single time. I try and avoid adding geometry, whenever possible.