I know that running the simulation gives you better results even on a static (Nonchanging) image. Especially when they are seated. I want my model to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee while she's on the phone. The skirt says it's a hybrid. I do get decent results when I pose it (Though some extra posing bones wouldn't have hurt) but I want to try it out. Yet I read this in the readme.

"To use the Conforming/Dynamic skirt - Load the skirt and then conform to V4, In the cloth room, clothify the hip, set the constraint group and then simulate as usual."

I can load the skirt and conform it. No issues there...but clothify the hip? Set the constraint group? What is a "usual" simulation? Unlike Sam Therapy, I am not a rocket scientist. Where should I start? I will take no offense if you explain it to me like I'm a five year old.

Find a tutorial that shows you how to use the cloth room. There's lots online.

The merchant is assuming you already know how to use dynamic clothing.

Thank you, Randy. I will look elsewhere for my answers as you advise. The merchant assumed a bit much in my case.

Pity though. When I saw there was already a response, I was thinking, "That was fast! Let's go!"

It's not difficult, but there's a lot of settings and it helps to have screenshots or video.

That's why I suggested that you find an existing tutorial, rather than try to talk you through it here.

I think you'll really like dynamic clothing if you've never used it before. The results are great.

You know, I have dynamic clothing like Kimono's and this skirt and I've always been envious of the results. It's human nature to stick with what's easiest and I've gotten good at it but I've known I've been missing out. If I want my comic to become better, I've got to learn to learn new things.

Yes, you are right. I am sure there are tutorials out there. Most video tutorials are frustrating due to either production values, assumed knowledge by the guru or other factors. Using the cloth room is just one I could mention that just didn't yield the results or was able to follow. The same with the hair room. I literally couldn't get past step 2.
I much prefer a written tutorial with the screenshots you mentioned. Still, I used Poser because it was so intuitive that I thought a quick explanation of the terms and maybe I could do it "quick and dirty".

Sorry for the passive aggressive remark. I just had my hopes up is all. I'll try not to be so lazy.

There are some very good tutorials in .pdf format available from Freestuff. For very basic instructions maybe one of these might help.

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/dynamic-cloth-tutorial/75014

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/cloth-room-tutorial/59882

For more detailed instructions and helpful tips Frequency has a series of tutorials:

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/contributor/Frequency

Always remember to save your scene before running a simulation!

Thanks Kalypso! I downloaded all three and am trying Lully's tutorial first.

How long does it take to run this simulation? 30 Frames is taking forever! An hour into this and I'm just Frame 16. Just to show I never knew what I talking about, I was thinking I wouldn't be able to tweak the upper body poses as it's just a girl sitting down with her legs crossed. It looks like I'll be able to make some needed tweaks afterward. Running a simulation is not rendering.

My god no. I didn't save the scene! The tutorial said nothing about saving the scene! What's going to happen??

Unfortunately your sim will disappear at the end, it will all just pop back to the zero pose. assuming you have never saved the scene and it is still default "untitled" The time taken to run the sim depends on among other things, such as cloth polygon density. on how many things you have selected to collide against, so make sure you haven't selected body parts that have no chance of colliding with the skirt.

Well, the sim held is the good news. The bad news is I didn't save the scene. The good news is I didn't need to save the scene due to the crappy results due to my rookie status. It took two hours to sim a sitting pose and the result were terrible. I'll try again when I have more time to dedicate. Due to my weak computer, this is definitely a setup and take off and do something else for a few hours type of endeavour.

Still, it's not so scary anymore. And that is good news

PS Did Emoji Codes lose their domain? I'm getting a web block from my Antivirus!! Since it is used on every single comment, I thought I would bring it up.

If it's taking a really long time, often the problem is that the clothing intersects something already. That can lead to really long sim times and ugly results.

Make sure you're starting from a zero pose. The skirt should not be touching anything at the start of the sim, including furniture, etc. Clothify just the hip, not the entire garment (since this is a hybrid item). If she's sitting, you probably want to include the chair in the things the skirt collides with.

The skirt was probably touching her hips. I didn't include the chair. I did just clothify the hip. I can always make the skirt a pure prop. Is that a better choice or does it matter. It seemed to move along well (the sim) then about halfway I was worried we would enter the degenerate era before it finished. I'll give it another try when I take off tomorrow. Thanks for the tips, randy!

As for myself, I prefer to use a full object instead of a hybrid, but I did use a hybrid in my first try. and it was with a tutorial.How is she sitting down? On what, I mean. Can you post an image of your final result?

If you make the hip a prop, it may fall off. You will need to add the top row of vertices to the constrained group. SImulations can slow down for different reasons. if the poly count is high, or there is intersection are the two common ones. When the poly count is high, I've had sims take several hours. I remember those garments and sim them overnight. Or run the polygon reducer. Even if there is no poke through at the beginning of the simulation, watch for body parts that might pass through other body parts. Also, make sure you give plenty of frames for the figure to get posed. Some old tutorials I've seen put the posed frame at 5 or 10. For a sitting position, you need at least 15 to 20. Think how fast your clothing whips around if you moved really fast. More frames slows the figure down to closer to normal speed.

Dynamic clothing shouldn't intersect the figure if the figure is zeroed. It might be very close, but it shouldn't intersect.

You might run into a problem if you're not starting from a zero pose. Also, sometimes there's an issue if you're using extreme morphs. If that's the case, start the morph at strength zero, and let it "grow" to full strength during the animation/sim.

I recall an old tutorial (don't remember where) suggesting that when running a simulation of a female wearing a skirt, have the figure assume a sitting position first ahead of the seat then slide either the figure or the seat into position so the skirt drapes correctly. If you attempt to sit the skirted model straight off on to the chair, the material will not drape realistically.

I have recently done a dynamic simulation with a skirt on the figure sitting on the chair (in Poser 10).

One thing to remember is that you don't need to do the whole thing in one simulation. I did the sitting pose without the furniture first to get the skirt generally folded over the lap; saved the results as a morph and deleted the simulation. Then I did a new simulation that put the figure close to the right place on (but not touching) the furniture; saved the results as morph and deleted the simulation. Then I did a final simulation just for a final drape (saving as a morph).

Splitting it up into separate simulations lets you change settings and change constrained/correographed groups for different pieces of the simulation. It also reduces the chances your computer will choke on a simulation that tries to do too much.

Be careful of how the skirt will get pinched between the figure's bottom and the furniture. It probably helps to set the friction numbers for the furniture low so the skirt doesn't get snagged on the furniture.

Hey Rob, I know Kalypso gave you some pdf's to read, but here's a Video from Frequency to watch on how to get a sitting pose with Dynamics: Video

I've done tons of skirts in chairs simulations. It's not too hard. Things to remember. Have the figure and the chair far enough apart that the skirt isn't intersecting the chair. Make sure the figure isn't intersecting the chair when sitting. You don't need to have the chair move to the figure after the figure is in a sitting position. You can do them at the same time. Set the collision offset and collision depth between the chair and skirt low, like at .1 so it doesn't get caught.

First, I want to thank everyone here for helping me. It's mucho appreciated.

Next, we should get some terms down. When you all say intersect, do you mean touching? It's a conforming/dynamic hybrid. It WILL touch her hip at some point.

Sorry, Earl. I can't show you my first effort because I tossed it away in disgust. While I prefer to read my tuts, I can watch a well made video. Even recommend it if the production values are up to snuff and they assume the user is a beginner, so thanks!!!

Here is the skirt with the model in question. She's on the phone because all girls are on the phone all the time. I include the very chair I had planned for her to sit in. Of course I can hide the chair but looking at the above advice, I don't know which way to go. One person says include the chair, the other says don't. Both know what they are doing. She is not drinking because she doesn't want to drink alone...She is waiting for her ex-husband's wife to show up (Just threw that in)

Widow Queen Crop.jpg

This is what happens when she sits down. You can't throw a cat out of the window without hitting a dforce render. Poser can already do that. But I can't.

I also did a render of the reverse side. I apologize for the quick and dirty nature for such an elegant model. The skirt should only reach the knee. It doesn't have to drape over it. But it should be snug. Most of all, it shouldn't be a mess. I use multiple angles in my comic. So I need this to look good from all angles. Am I using the correct tool? While conforming is easier for sure, I was of the notion that dynamic is actually better when it comes to clothing.

Sorry! I messed up the picture sequence. But you can see, the full skirt and the seated look from both sides.

With a skirt that tight, I don't know what you achieve with a cloth simulation. That would naturally hug the body (conform) without being altered much by outside forces. A simulation is going to be more useful for a looser, more flowing garment. For something tight, you probably want something conforming.

In a simulation, the dynamic part of the cloth should not touch anything with which it is set to collide. The collision offset is the gap of space that the simulation maintains between the cloth and collision objects (figure body parts and chair). When the cloth starts closer to the collision objects than the collision offset, or touches, the cloth tends to get torn up. It can also rip if the friction is too high between the cloth and the collision objects. Stretching out of shape can be due to a combination of the stretch and the density parameters.

I'm amateurish, but to me, for a skirt like that, I'd like to be using a conforming skirt, and then tweaking it with magnets or the fitting room as necessary.

bjbrown posted at 8:45PM Mon, 18 November 2019 - #4370625

With a skirt that tight, I don't know what you achieve with a cloth simulation. That would naturally hug the body (conform) without being altered much by outside forces. A simulation is going to be more useful for a looser, more flowing garment. For something tight, you probably want something conforming.

In a simulation, the dynamic part of the cloth should not touch anything with which it is set to collide. The collision offset is the gap of space that the simulation maintains between the cloth and collision objects (figure body parts and chair). When the cloth starts closer to the collision objects than the collision offset, or touches, the cloth tends to get torn up. It can also rip if the friction is too high between the cloth and the collision objects. Stretching out of shape can be due to a combination of the stretch and the density parameters.

I'm amateurish, but to me, for a skirt like that, I'd like to be using a conforming skirt, and then tweaking it with magnets or the fitting room as necessary.

Amateurish? You seem to know you're stuff to me. I just want the best results and to quote diego, "I don't that means what you think that means" applies here (to me). I do wonder why they made the skirt to be both but that could be my ignorance talking. I'm not the best with magnets and worse with the fitting room but I've got a few tricks I can use for a static image. I thought a dynamic skirt meant it could at least sit down when run during a sim. As you can, it can't. I'll give it a try with a new kimono I just got. It's old but it's new to me.

Don't delete the dynamic version of the skirt yet. You may find potential uses for it. Just save it as a last resort.

I don't always find the Poser manual to be helpful. But the chapter on the Cloth Room has a little section on dynamic vs. conforming clothes, part of which reads: "Items such as socks, bikinis, or tights don’t need to be dynamic since in real life these types of clothing tend to be close-fitting with little to no room for independent motion." A pencil skirt isn't quite the same thing as tights- but nevertheless it's close-fitting without much room for independent motion.

Depending on how the conforming skirt is constructed, it could be a challenge to get it to fit right around the crossed legs, then maybe you'd want to reconsider a dynamic simulation. (But in that case, I still wouldn't do a full-fledged simulation- I'd just do one to sort of shrink-wrap the skirt around the crossed legs.)

bjbrown posted at 11:12PM Mon, 18 November 2019 - #4370634

then maybe you'd want to reconsider a dynamic simulation. (But in that case, I still wouldn't do a full-fledged simulation- I'd just do one to sort of shrink-wrap the skirt around the crossed legs.)

That is what I'm looking for. It's a pencil skirt. It's supposed to be longer so it's tasteful yet snug so it's sexy. You mentioned "short of shrink wrap the skirt" around the crossed legs. Could you elaborate? Are we talking about the fitting room again? I hadn't thought to use it as a one off in a posed position. Poser has a lot of hidden power...hmm. That might be worth experimenting with at the least.

The skirt is going to mainly cling to the body, but then stretch between the legs. So start from zero pose in first frame to sitting pose in the last frame (the default 1 to 30 frames is probably fine). There's no draping, so choose zero drape frames. For the collision objects, choose the parts of the body with which the skirt will collide. Do not choose the chair as a collision object, because the skirt isn't going to drape over the chair. Uncheck the "drape from zero pose" because you aren't draping the skirt. Set the collision offset to 0.1, same with collision depth. Set the cloth density to the lowest possible (0.0001 I think) so gravity isn't a factor. Keep the Fold/Shear/Stretch Resistances at medium numbers I think- you don't want the skirt to lose its basic shape, but it is going have to give a bit to accommodate the pose. Maybe 5.0 for fold, 25.0 for the other two. (The numbers are a mystery to me.)

If you suspect the dynamic part of the skirt is too close to (or touching or intersecting) the figure, then scale down the figure's body parts a little on the first frame until you are sure there is no touching, and then bring the parts up to normal scale by the final frame. If the skirt still tears in the simulation, try lowering the static friction first (to 0.1 maybe?), then possibly try lowering the stretch. If you watch the simulation as it breaks, you can kinda get an idea of what the problem might be. Does it look like it snags? That's a friction problem. Does it look like it's stretched to breaking? Maybe lower the Stretch Resistance.

Everything I know about the cloth room is through reading the manual, then trial-and-error. I've never figured out what the different numbers are supposed to mean for the various settings, and there might be better methods of doing things than I use.

bjbrown posted at 12:54AM Tue, 19 November 2019 - #4370647

...and there might be better methods of doing things than I use.

There might be. However, I am of the opinion that knowing something is better than knowing nothing most of the time. I'm running a render right now and the LaFemme Daily Bun is holding things up. How can a bun suck up so much more than anything else? I turned off the light emitters this time. Maybe it will render in a reasonable time with the higher Firefly settings I like to use.

Hey, Rob, out of curiosity, I noticed that when she is standing, the back of her skirt seems to be intersecting with the back of her left leg. Is that the case? That might be one reason why your sim took an hour. I also have to agree a bit with bjbrown. Of course I've never actually worn a skirt before, that tight or otherwise, so you might confirm this with a woman, but that skirt is rather tight and would probably benefit more from conforming than dynamics.

Yep you do get skirts that tight, and on the whole they are not stretchy, so a high stretch resistance, even up to 980 is required, unless the skirt is jersey or lycra in which case you would have a lower stretch resistance but a higher Stretch Damping.

If you want the chair to interact, which you would here probably, make sure that when she is sat, her buttocks don't go below the seat of the chair (I usually flatten the buttocks and depress the seat of the chair with the morph brush. Same applies to her thighs and shins. I would then make sure that such morphs are zero on frame 1 but set on frame 30 (the chair can have the morph throughout.) I would then copy her position from frame 30 to frame 1 so that there is no vertical movement during the sim. I would move the chair back and down on frame 1 so that it moves up into the figure rather than the figure moving down to the chair (much less energy entering the simulation that way) If you are just simulating the skirt (hip in the cloth) then for that skirt you would need to add hips, (possibly addomen) rThigh, lThigh, rShin, lShin to the collision objects and use a low (0.1 to 0.2) offset and depth

in your picture, it looks like the skirt may have a sit morph applied already. Turn that off. And if you have any morphs for helping the skirt fit, turn those off at the end of the simulation.

"Intersect" means the meshes intersect BEFORE the sim starts.

When you run the sim, the clothing should drape/stretch around the figure, and anything else you've set it to collide with (like furniture). But if part of the clothing is inside the figure, even a little, it will be a mess.

If the standing pose is where you started from...that might be the problem. Try starting from the zero pose. You know, the T-pose most figures come in with. The clothing should be designed to fit perfectly in that pose. Your final sitting pose will be the last frame in the animation. So frame 1 will be the T-pose, frame 30 will be the seated pose you want as your end result.

It looks to me like the skirt intersected with the figure's thigh in frame 1, and that's why it took so long and why the results were bad. Starting with the figure zeroed should fix that. Given that the skirt is so tight, you should probably apply any figure morphs in frame 30 as well, at least any that make her hips and thighs larger.

Also...I wouldn't mess with the cloth settings, at least at first. The merchant usually has it set to so works right for the garment. Once you get the sim working correctly, you can experiment with the cloth parameters.

There are some very basic rules to cloth sim in Poser, and most were covered by the very experienced users above. In summary, I had success with the following:

1. ALWAYS start from zero pose. Do not apply a pose in Frame one, ever, just to be sure.
2. I usually add the character morphs in frame 5 so there is time to adjust and stretch.
3. I set sims to run for 30 frames. Apply the pose in Frame 30 (or however long you are running the sim).
4. Always check that there is no 'intersect' ie. no 'clothing part is inside the figure' in FRAME 1. If there is, move the clothing until there is no intersection (x,y,z or scaling).
5. With tight clothes, no draping, so uncheck that and like it was said above, also uncheck start draping from zero pose.
6. Don't mess with cloth settings just yet, the advice from AmethystPendant above about friction etc. is super good however. Also their advice about how to set the chair--I need to try that, wow.
7. Save once it's done; always render from Frame 30.
8. If you clothify a hybrid piece of clothing, make sure you don't add movement morphs like 'sit'. You are simming that with the dynamics.

It still will take a few tries. I can see why people are so rarely use dynamics because it may take just one little mistake to have the whole thing messed up and discouraging users. I really long for an easier system and dforce is a huge positive for the other company/software in that direction--undoubtedly this is another factor in why Poser really needs a thourough modernization.

Are the legs crossing in the seated position? That could complicate the simulation also. I'm in agreement that scaling might alleviate the heavy poke through and distortion.

The legs are definitely crossed. How would scaling affect things? Are you saying I should reduce the size of everything? That would be possible for everything save her shoes. For some reason, there was no parameter to scale down her shoes. Not even in the hidden parameter menu. Easily fixed. That model has more shoes than me.

One thing. In the final crossed leg pose above. Will I need to be certain that the cloth is not touching the model in the final pose as well? I won't be draping as I want a snug fit that befits a pencil skirt. I am thinking from the advice above, that the skirt will stop a micron above her skin. Soooo does the cloth ever touch the skin a simulation?

With the legs crossed, that might call for two simulations, or at least two steps in one simulation. First simulation or step would start with scaled down legs, cross them in a standing position, and end with normal scale. Second simulation or step would bend the legs to seated position. The potential problem of doing it all at once is that the skirt could get pinched between the thighs while they cross, and I'd want to be careful to avoid that. There is another potential problem with the skirt getting pinched between thighs and pelvis in seated position, but that's easier to deal with if addressing it independently of the potential leg-crossing pinch. (Plus, a potential pinch between thighs and pelvis may not even matter in the final render.)

Here's why pinches are a problem. The simulation is attempting to keep the cloth at a distance (determined by collision offset) from each of the collision objects (each body part, and the furniture if you are including it). If the cloth gets sandwiched between two collision objects (i.e. left thigh and right thigh), and the collision objects are too close to each other to allow the cloth to be at the collision offset distance from each, then it becomes impossible for the simulation to do what it's supposed to do and frequently breaks the simulation.

quietrob posted at 1:55PM Tue, 19 November 2019 - #4370687

The legs are definitely crossed. How would scaling affect things? Are you saying I should reduce the size of everything? That would be possible for everything save her shoes. For some reason, there was no parameter to scale down her shoes. Not even in the hidden parameter menu. Easily fixed. That model has more shoes than me.

One thing. In the final crossed leg pose above. Will I need to be certain that the cloth is not touching the model in the final pose as well? I won't be draping as I want a snug fit that befits a pencil skirt. I am thinking from the advice above, that the skirt will stop a micron above her skin. Soooo does the cloth ever touch the skin a simulation?

Scaling the body parts is a way to be sure that the body does not intersect with the cloth at the start of the simulation. So if there's an intersection problem at the legs, you might start with the legs scaled down (x and z scale, make them thinner not shorter) to say 90% on frame one. However, on the last frame of the simulation (frame 30 if you are going 1 to 30), you have the legs set to 100% or whatever the scale is that you are using. The legs grow during the simulation, and the cloth moves to accommodate the leg growth.

In a successful simulation, the cloth and the collision objects never touch. There is always space between them, as determined by the collision offset. If the cloth cannot maintain that collision offset distance, the simulation tends to break.

Another thing that might help a potentially tight simulation is using the additional cloth collision options (object vertex on cloth polygon, object polygon against cloth polygon). It makes the simulation take longer, but in my experience, even my slow computer handles it okay. (I've only had problems with objects with really, really high polygon counts.) As I understand it, those two options are different ways to double- and triple-check each frame of the simulation to make sure the cloth doesn't get too close to the collision objects.

Am I wrong in thinking that this should be easier? I am going to run the simulation when I take off for work later and hopefully it will be done by the time I come back. Is doing two simulations for something like a femme fatale (She is a femme fatale film noir type damn) crossing her legs in a pencil skirt normal? I don't know how the other team does it but I am think it should be easier than this. Then again, I can't find a pencil skirt over there (lol)!

There is a lot to take in but I'm feeling less like a rookie and thinking about kimonos again. So thank you all and bear with me while I learn something new. I know there is a lot more views than comments which means at least a percentage of lurkers and learning as well. A strong community means a stronger product.

What is the best way to find out the polygon count of the skirt?

It's probably easier once you have experience with the cloth room.

I tried something quick with V3 and a close-fitting knee-length dynamic skirt. I didn't spend too much time setting it up, and mostly used defaults on settings. The settings I changed were unchecking drape, setting collision offset to 0.1, and setting static friction to 0.1. I used the first 15 frames to cross the legs upright, then the last 15 frames to bring them to sitting. I forget the simulation time, but the simulation took about a minute or so to run.

The skirt creases are rough, I don't know if different simulations settings would smooth them out, but unless I could find a quick answer to that, I'd probably use the fitting room tool or Photoshop to deal with the creases. The skirt isn't as tight as I'd anticipated, so I'd have to add a chair and rerun it with a step to sit her on the chair

I have a conforming version of the same skirt. It has extra rigging to work with walking poses, but it's useless with the cross-legged sit.

I re-ran the simulation, adding a Voluptuous morph to V3, and adding the chair (used 0.1 for static friction for it). It's now a 60 frame simulation: 1-15 crosses the legs, 16-30 adds the Voluptuous morph, 31-60 bends the legs and sits V3 on the chair. (V3's rear does not touch the chair; there's a small gap of about 0.01 Poser units) The simulation takes about 0.5 seconds per frame for 1-30, slows down to about 3.0 seconds per frame on 31-60. I don't know that the extra frames helped anything, I could probably halve the whole thing and get the same results.

It's certainly not perfect, but the simulations are taking me 1-2 minutes each, so it wouldn't be too time consuming to experiment with tweaking it.