can do....check out the "conforming clothes" tutorial  (manual editing method)

http://www.4shared.com/account/dir/5124159/75b23460/sharing.html?rnd=87

Note:clothing can be made then setup for D|S/Poser use however  Blender rigging is not compatible and there aren't any working converters ATM.

Note to self: Reading for comprehension goes a long way, eh? :rolleyes:

Sorry, haven't yet found a properly working Collada exporter for Blender either.......FBX would be nice too.

The following Collada  importer does work, released in Sept. 2008

http://teraapi.com/collada4blender/index.htm

Hey,

BlenderNewbies has a great toolbar for download that has RSS feeds to most of the major Blender related sites. Recently they added an RSS feed to the toolbar for Animation Tips and Tricks that should help you search out information more quickly than asking here.

Here's the link to the page where you can DL the toolbar:

http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com/2008/11/news-blender-browser-toolbar-update.html

Sorry I can't be more help but I don't animate in Blender yet.

Here are links to a few more open source render engines and the free Panda3d modeler.

http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/

http://www.luxrender.net/

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/

http://sunflow.sourceforge.net/

http://www.panda3d.org/

Kerkythea has a built in importer for .skp files for native import of Google SketchUp scenes and there is a Blender to .xml script for use as an external render for Blender. It supports import of the usual model formats also. A very nice application, I highly recommend it though it is a pain to work with Poser/DAZ figures because of the way the material zones are setup on the models.

Luxrender, Indigo, and Sunflow are all good physically based render engines.

Panda3d is a free modeler by Disney and maintained by Carnegie Mellon University that covers modeling, rendering, and game dev.

Almost forgot about Art of Illusion, another open source modeling and rendering application.

http://www.artofillusion.org/

I'm getting the same thing in 2.48 - Vista 64Bit, dual AMD 9550, 32 GB RAM, nVidia 280 video card.

Just for a comparison I've  tried 2.43, 2.44, 2.46 & 2.47 on the same machine and all are blazing fast. I can sculpt at literally twice the resolution in 2.47 as in 2.48 before I hit the performance wall. Seems to be a definite memory usage problem in 2.48 from what I'm seeing.

If you saved the file you were working on simply open it and click the Apply Multires button under the Multires tab. Since you don't have any multires levels active in the model this will clear the error msg without causing any actual change to your mesh allowing you to proceed with editing.

The problem on the new file you created appears to be a video issue, google for information related to problems between your video card and Blender to determine if this is an ongoing problem with a solution or just a hiccup in the flow that may or may not repeat itself. I had a couple of oddities show up with Blender 2.48 on my Nvidia 280GTX card that were resolved either with the 2.48a release or the update to my video drivers, unsure which as I did both updates at the same time.

Quote - A square plane with added subdivision levels does not get you to a square grid? It will give you a perfect circle. Its the easiest way dude.

Im sure lisarichie's way would work too but wow seems really complicated?

Also never use tris in cloth it will make your lighting look like crap because the quads will bend in the middle. Doh! Unless polycount is of no matter to you then hey go for it. Everyone loves a 2 million poly skirt :)

Shrug......quads are 2 tris with an implicit shared diagonal and "bend in the middle" on a regular basis in organic modeling.

Oddly enough I've never had an issue with the mesh making my lighting look like crap, have had it the other way round a few times though. :lol:

Straight quads can force folds to form along undesirable lines during a cloth sim. Using a randomized tri mesh helps eliminate this allowing the cloth to deform more freely along the form of the underlying object. It took me a little reading and testing to get this idea too.

Poly counts....knew I should have highlighted the part about reduction.

Cloth sims don't need highpoly counts to work. The subd level and subsequent decimation decribed was to take advantage of the randomization caused by the decimate modifier to break the artificial lines of the quads.

Cloth simulation has been around a day or two so there are various avenues of approach to the idea. Flexibility in this approach can be beneficial to accomodating different situations that arise when modeling, but then to each his own.

CTRL+E>loopcut or hot key K  for the knife tool to cut across existing edge loops.

There are some links to very good cloth sim information such as the Maya Cloth manual, on this page. Copy and paste link into browser as I haven't gotten the hang of direct links  here yet.

http://www.poserfashion.net/About%20cloth%20simulation.htm

The information is not Blender specific but the concepts are transferable to Blender and will give you a good basis for improved cloth simulation.

A couple of the links on the page are to white papers so aren't necessary to read unless you want to know more about the mathematics behind cloth simulation.

I get good results with  this method in situations like you described:

Add a circle, scaling to the circumference of the waistband
ALT+RMB>E>ENTER>ENTER>S  to scale out in a planar direction for creation of the outer circle (the hem edge) Do not move the mouse during the extrusion part of the preceding sequence. Ideally select the circle then take your hand off the mouse until you reach the scaling step.

Select one of the radial edges then CTRL E>loopcut  using the middle mouse button to increase the number of loopcuts to the desired amount. Just try to make a reasonably evenly divided layout at this point. Arrange for any longer or shorter areas or splits on the finished garment. (angled skirt, split skirt, etc.)

(Here's where you get to use the irregularity of poly reduction to good effect for a change.)

First subdivide the mesh to the highest level your computer can handle.

Use either the decimate modifier or the poly reduction script to bring the poly count back down to a reasonable level. This randomizes the poly layout within the boundaries which for the purpose of a cloth sim is a GOOD thing.

Convert quads to triangles and UV map using project from view for an undistorted circular map.

Run the cloth simulation.

Alternatively you can create the skirt using the above method on two mapped planes (rather than an extruded circle) that are UV mapped then joined before running the cloth sim. This allows for better texture creation of patterned fabrics.

You need to have at least Python 2.5.2 installed on your system to have full import/export availability. You can download the release appropriate for your OS on the Python website.

I am pushing it in the attempt to achieve results equivalent to ZBrush for geometry based displacement map generation as opposed to photo reference generated displacement maps.

It just bugs me that I can work on the model in 2.47 at a high level but not in 2.48, not really a show stopper  just an annoyance.:biggrin:

I am having no joy with sculpt in 2.48, it hits the wall at approx. 200k polys and is slow at half that amount.

I can take the same mesh up to 1.5M polys in 2.47 before performance drops, nearly 1.8M polys before it stalls.

I was looking forward to the sculpting "improvements" in version 2.48 :crying:

Direct link below to the official release FTP page for the various OS downloads for anyone whose OS isn't represented on GraphicAll yet.

http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.48rc/

Here's a link to a really good camera/lighting tutorial for DAZ Studio.

http://digilander.libero.it/maclean/DStutorial.htm