Hello!

Hopefully this is a quick fix that is just eluding me. My drapes are, for the most part, as expected and excellent. But, I keep getting lumpy folds in the end.

Can anyone advise what am I missing?

These are self created objects, so maybe there is a problem with their creation? They were created using quads with fairly large polys, but have a "smoothing" level applied of 1 in the modeling room.

I'm using the Carrara Bridge.

Thanks!

-Mike

Yes, I would say large poly is the problem as poly can't fold in simu. Can you subdivide in Carrara as in DS4? before or after simu?

Thanks for the reply!

Yes I can subdivide in Carrara before the simulation. I'll try this right away!

Thanks again!

Show us your results !

Well, I'm having other issues now. After subdividing, I try to import the coat, and it starts to do it, loading the coat into the scene, but then stalls and, finally, leaving an error message saying the object does not exist!

After clicking OK, the VWD panel does not display the coat in the Scene Viewer, but it is listed in the Scene import panel. All panels below the Scene viewer vanish! Argh! ?

I'll keep trying!

Don't know what's the parameter you used in Carrara but if the clothe is too heavy you get this error. Not a technical guy to explain the details

Try to go little by little (equivalent of subdivide 1 of DS4)

Thanks, Smakert!

1 subdivide in Carrara would double the polys. Would that be the equivalent in DS4?

I effectively subdivided once, and that seems to be choking the program. Its not quite small enough, but 1 subdivide is too much! ☹️

I'll keep working on the mesh until I find that perfect size, I guess.

-Mike

Another option is to subdivide after the simu. In DS4 I also use the smooth modifier don't know if you have the équivalent in DS4

Could you show the clothe poly?

Carrara does have a subdivide tool and I did try it post simulation, but, it just produced a lot of smaller lumps. ?

But, after working on the coat mesh some more, I think I've found a good or better size for the mesh polys.

I especially worked on the lower half of the body of the coat, and less so as I moved up from there. And, as you can see, the lumps start appearing again as the mesh polys get larger.

So, thanks again Smaker1. You've put me on the right track, I hope.

...then again... On closer examination, I see some other odd artifacts. ?

Did you try subdivision after simu and a smooth modifier if that exists in Carrara

Not sure about these ideas: did you try with quads? to see if there is difference? may be the size of you character compared to Vicky?

here is my current project : Genesis dragon Princess after VWD simu on Genesis 3 to see the resolution!

Very nice, Smaker1! And you don't seem to have problems regarding the size of the mesh. Also, VWD didn't triangulate your mesh. I created my coat with quads and VWD triangulated it.

Here's my mesh post subdivided in Carrara.

Not too promising, I'm afraid. A smoothing applied doesn't help either.

But, you bring up the possibility that my character could be problematic, I'll take a look at that next.

Thanks again for your attention and aid!

After making a little try : you must have the "subdivision" active in clothe settings in VWD try without it or reset default parameters

Subdivide option for clothe is very sensitive and I never use it! I think it's made for old clothes with very very low resolution. The value works differently from DS4 (where 1 double the size). Gerald could explain it better. I tried with a recent clothe and value 1: same error I think that the resolution generated was too heavy and not useful

@MikeO : Excuse me to reply so late to this post. What is the name of the vest you use. I will make a test with it.

From what I understood the clothe was modeled by MikeO (and the character?) From the pictures, I suppose that's it's a double layered clothe which is not the simpliest clothe to simulate (at least for me!!)

Hello Gerald! Hello again Smaker1!

I created both the character and the coat myself in Carrara. They were both fairly low resolution originally, so I've been trying different levels of smoothing and subdivision within the Carrara modeling app on both objects, as well as manually adding more geometry to the coat.

I have not used subdivision within VWD. I could not get it to work. That's when I started getting the "object not found" error messages. In fact, any level of subdivision or smoothing applied beyond a certain point would trigger that error message.

I'd offer to send you, Gerald, the files for testing, but they are created to be animated in Carrara only. ?

The solution seems to be almost there, and yet so far away!

Thank you both for your attention!

Did you try with a "standard" clothe free or bought just to see if you have the same troubles?

Hello MikeO,

If you want, you can send me the files. I will delete them as soon as the problem is resolved.

The "object not found" error message is linked to a timeout. The new bridge written by Philemot takes a bit more time to import the files and this message appears. In the new version of VWD this timeout is 2 times longer and you should not see this message.

I just thought to a solution: some clothes don't like the two first default parameters when you import a dynamic actor. You can make a test using the same value for these 2 values (0.1 for both, or 0.01 for both).

Thanks for looking in on this Gerard!

I'd gladly send you the files, but, will these native Carrara files be of use to you? I can convert them to OBJs files, of course, but will that not change their natures? Unless you have and use Carrara yourself, that is. ?

When you say "two first default parameters", are you referring to the Collision distance in the Collision Parameters panel that opens upon first selection and before importation? Or something else?

Hello Smaker1!

I have only tried other standard characters (Genesis) and clothes casually, and not as deeply. Many others have used VWD to spectacular effect with Carrara. so I wasn't as involved in studying those models.

But, it is an idea I shall explore so I can see if I get similar, or better results.

Hello Mikeo,

I can use Objs files if you can export this format. I just need to have the scale (unit) used in this file. I suppose I could find it by myself but there is a risk of error.

You are right, my explanations were not very clear about the default parameters. These parameters are "Stretch" and "Softness" at the top of the Dynamic tab. For some clothes, the simulation works really better if these parameters have th same value. You can make a test using this.

Hello Gerard-

I did check and both objects have Stretch and Softness set at .1 and .01.

Next question, please. How can I send you the converted obj files? ?

Hmm... after converting the coat to OBJ (as I was going to send it to Gerard for testing), I decided to try a sim with the new coat. Much better results!!! Still a bit of lumpiness but not nearly so much! ?

Here's what I can say that is different about the older and newer coats. With the older coat I was relying on using Carrara's "smoothing" tool within its modeller, to subdivide the mesh before sending to VWD, whereas the converted coat was imported without the need for using that smoothing. The resulting mesh (which was in effect subdivided in the conversion to OBJ) worked much nicer in VWD with minimal lumps.

The collision character has also been reliant on the smoothing to subdivide the mesh, but it doesn't seem to affect the simulation, as far as I can tell.

I still have to deal with a few poke-throughs and some areas where the inside of the coat poked through, but those are issues for another day..

Yay! ?

Thank you Smaker1 and Gerard for your attention while I tried to work this out!

And thanks again, Gerard (and Phillipe!) for this wonderful plugin! We Carrara users have waited so long for this ability!

Hi MikeO,

Sorry I didin't see your post before. Could you send me your .Car file so I can have a look? Is the "merge vertices" checked before sending the subdivided mesh to VWD ? It may take time and it doesn't look necessary looking at your mesh. Do you use the import static pose in VWD or do you import an animation? The process is slightly different in the Carrara bridge.

It looks like the model imported from VWD has creased edges (I don't know why and I would like to investigate). I think you can solve the lumps by opening the VWD mesh in the vertex editor, selecting everything and applying the command "smooth edges".

Can do, Philemot! And thanks for looking in!

Can you tell me a process by which I can send the file to you?

I can either keep the coat_VWD object in the file, or delete it to save on file size. I will keep the coat.obj I converted for Gerard, as well as the original coat, in the file. I'll also take out any unnecessary objects.

I'm not sure where the "merge vertices" checkbox would be. Is this a Carrara thing, or a VWD one?

I am using the dynamic simulation, and will be using this eventually for animation.

The model coat does not have creased edges, although the coat_VWD does end up with some, and I do smooth edges subsequently before rendering anything.

Curiously, some, but not all, of the creases in the VWD coat occur where I think I had assigned UV seams during the UV mapping process. So, where the sleeves attach to the body of the coat and the ones which would occur where the front and back sides of the coat would be seem to be where the creases are created in the process of importing into VWD. I've been adding geometry to the mesh since I last did the UV mapping, so those seams could have shifted, and may represent all of the creases that are appearing. I'll investigate to see if I can tell if this is the case.

I at least have arrived at an acceptable result, for now. I will eventually be turning to other files and characters and will see if similar simulations problems occur.

Thanks again! And hopefully my file will be instructive.

And also thanks for this wonderful plugin!!! You've breathed new life into Carrara! ?

-MikeO

Philemot-

After some investigation, I do believe the creases that appear in my coat_VWD generated model has something to do with my UV mapping seams.

It's an easy fix to smooth them out, as you know, but whether this impacts the simulation is another matter.

Hope this helps.

-MikeO