I believe you, Smaker1 ("There are no miracle :-) but I must say that VWD is worth every pennies, dollars, euros,.... and I get nothing from VWD saying that!")! I know it's good; I'm just not "feeling the love" currently. So how is you complete version protected? By a Serial number or some link to your hard drive? I know serial number type protection is easy to crack (Gerald's main concern; and fair enough too; there must be an awful amount of hours tied up in his program and not much to see from it {speaking program-wise; definitely not what it can do}) and that linking the program to your hard drive's "fingerprint" is far more difficult - it's just a pain for users when the hard drive self-destructs (Note. I wrote "when", not "if". At the rate at which HDD's are manufactured, their capacities and prices; it's just a matter of "when" - they're just not that well-made any more). You can back up your data but you can't transfer your HDD's fingerprint to another HDD - you'll have to get back in touch with Gerald and get a replacement program. It's not so much a deal-breaker; it's just inconvenient more than anything else; again, imho. Perhaps I'm just being overly bitchy (ie. perhaps I just need something to complain about; I'm one of those "artistic types".......lol). Anyway, I'll be back with more questions once I've gotten myself a complete version................ Thanks again for all your help...........

@Smaker1. "From the manual ("demo version" chapter) "The demo version allows to run the same simulations as the normal version. The only difference is the inability to save animations in Poser®.....To give the user a real view of the simulation, the demo program, as normal program also, allows you to record images of the interface during the calculation. These images are stored in a video format and saved in a file named « Simulation.avi » in the program directory.."" Yeah, I read that too; but I also read how Gerald had to alter his copyright protection as Renderosity weren't happy with it - so I was unsure as to whether that still held (there are quite a few out of date bits and pieces throughout the manual, especially the button names {Presumably due to all of the updates/bug fixes/improvements/additional features Gerald has been adding} - I though that this may have been one of them). I also thought that, as the manual was always referring to animations and I was doing static images and gave little thought to animation-creation, perhaps it didn't apply and that one could do static images with the demo. Stranger things have been available online than software that was free unless you wanted to do just that one extra thing with it.................. Yeah, perhaps I was a bit naive/hopeful/wishful .................. Anyway, I have sent Gerald a sitemail; hopefully he'll notice m and get back to me soon-ish. Until then; back to Vue/Terragen..................

You know, I read the last 3 or 4 pages of this thread and the first 4 or 5 pages and I read so much conflicting information, I had no idea what the protection was [re. the software]. So HOW are people buying this software as Renderosity in their short-sightedness have yet to support VWD in the store? I can see why Hivewire exists; too much politics and narrow-mindedness both here and at DAZ 3D. But I digress............. When I first tried VWD with the loincloth, I got a result back in Poser (not the one I wanted, but there was a result); is there some sort of number of tries or number of days where it works fully before this limitation occurs? I just really want to see this work once before shelling out so much money. I'm not saying it's not worth it, I just need to see I can use it properly (disability pension doesn't go that far and family & friends already get me too much digital art stuff - lucky for me)....... BTW, If you know; is the limitation still that it only works on one hard drive? I'd hate that to be the protection used; hard drives aren't really all that reliable nowadays...... Anyway, I think I'll have to trawl through this thread a bit more and find Gerald's contact info and bite the bullet..................

@Smaker1, I tried Jillian Hair by Littlefox - same result. VWD; where are you? Help....please......

@Smaker1, The hair is Sookie hair by SWAM. I was wondering whether seeing the hair at that stage was what was meant to happen or not. I was only going by Gerald's manual (God, I wish he'd let me help him translate it; I get so damned confused reading it. Google translate is better than a kick in the teeth, but only marginally.........). It's good to know at least that is what is to be expected. Do you think that it could be the hair itself? It'd just be my luck; my favourite hair.............. I'm still using the demo version; I don't think it too unreasonable to get it to work at least once for me before I spend Au$75............ I know it's a good program, I'm just not having any luck with it............... BTW; thanks, Smaker1 for sticking with it and trying to help me - I appreciate it. @thehawkman; I hear what you're saying, but that is exactly what you do have to do (with the demo, imho). You either put up with having to ask lots of questions and "get in on the ground floor", or wait a year or two, until all the kinks are ironed out and then pay 10x the current price. I know what I write hear may seem contradictory to my frustrated posts, but that's just venting (I'm just more vocal than most). We all get frustrated and annoyed when we can't get the help we want, NOW. Just live with it; it'll be worth it in the end.............. I'm sure that VWD is doing all he can to put out guides and tutorials but, as he has to translate everything into English for those of use that can't understand/read French, it takes time........... In the meantime, download the demo, read the manual (start about midway through - that's where the working step by step tutorials are. Go back and read all of the "this button does this, and this button.... after having a few goes. It makes more sense that way) and have a go. Don't let my troubles discourage you; I'm just hopeless.........

@Smaker1, thanks for replying - I think everyone else is already sick of me....... I tried that (the simple workflow but the hair simply does not cooperate! I followed the simple hair simulation example to the letter (except where the button names had changed and I had to guess. ie. "Max distance" which I think is now called Selection distance but I have yet to have anyone confirm this). The guide shows Using 1000 vertices but the default in the program is 800 (and I think it relates to "Compute head vertices" which is not part of this simulation, so I left it alone). So, in my own words, I loaded and posed V4, then loaded and conformed the hair to V4. I then started VWD, clicked on the Poser List button, selected V4, clicked on Collision and then Collision again. The I highlighted the Hiar and clicked on the Hair button, and then the Hair button again. Supposedly, the character (V4) and hair should now be visible in the Scene viewer; only V4 is (this has always been the case for me). I click on V4 in the Poser List box and then ctrl click V4 (buggered if I know why - there is no observable change, but I did it anyway as that is what I was told to do). Then, in the Hair Parameters tab, I click on the down arrow for the preset box and select V4; all of the hair attachment vertices of the collision object (V4) are now red. I now click on the Show hair vertices button and now all of the hair vertices show up as blue and V4 is visible as a simple shaded object. I now click on the Generate springs and finish (labelled in the manual as simply, "Generate springs"); for the first time, the hair is now visible as a simple shaded object. At this stage, I believe it's ready for a simulation. As I have started from scratch again; there is no animation set up, so I will try the static simulation (so I don't think the hair will remain in mid air as it did with the dynamic simulation - but I have yet to get anything from a static simulation when I press the Stop static simulation button...) Below are my results for both a static and Dynamic simulation. The static simulation did nothing to the hair in Poser & the Dynamic simulation (same workflow as described above except for creating a 90 frame animation from T pose to crazy jump to final desired pose - with 30 frames to allow hair to settle; which was probably not enough as the hair had not fully settled after the crazy jump before the end of the animation/simulation)..... Static simulation

Nothing appears to have happened here..................

Dynamic simulation

New hair prop is where the hair was at the start of the sim & the original, conformed hair figure is still where it should be (but unchanged, of course)... Any suggestions? I'm about to go back to playing with Vue without Poser figures.............

Arrrggghhh! If I still had any hair, I'd be pulling it out! I gave up on simulating the loincloth (I fitted it as best I could and will touch up in Photoshop; if I ever get that far) and have "progressed to the hair. I follow the user guide, "Simple Hair Simulation". I created a random animation, ending with the pose I want at frame 50 - leaving a further 10 frames to settle. When the dynamic simulation finishes and VWD closes automatically (I went back to trying dynamic as static was giving me nothing. "Send to Poser" or "Stop static simulation did nothing for the hair). I now have a hair prop that remains stationary in mid air, where the hair started;

Yes, the hair was conformed to V4 before starting the simulation. What am I doing wrong now??! Yeah, I'm getting frustrated...... sorry

Other questions: When doing a hair sim, I get to the point where I press Show hair vertices and then start looking for a button entitled Max distance. Has this button's name been changed to Selection distance? In the current user guide, I'm told that a value between 5000 to 10000 is generally OK; but the default value is 0.5. Or should I be looking at the Using [800] vertices? area where [800] is a figure that can be changed..........? Anyone who has the time........ help..........please.......

I'm currently trying a static sim; quick question - how do you repeat simulation? I am currently getting a bit further but now have issues of the cloth intersecting front and back layers (@Smaker1; you were right - 2 layers). Smaker1 suggested earlier that I increase sub samples but it's greyed out after having done the first static sim. As playing around with this sort of program involves lots of tweaking as you're learning, I'm loathe to restart VWD every time and redo a slightly tweaked sim. Redoing the simulation (ie. restarting) would be counter-productive to the tweaking process (and it also makes it really difficult to see what difference little changes can make). Help........

Well, I spent several hour reading through the manual, taking my own notes, getting a better fit for the loincloth before the VWD sim., selecting all of the chain as well as the front and back bejeweled parts and nailing & rigidifying them. Ran it through my 30 frame simulation and there is absolutely no difference to my earlier miserable fails. Here is the better fit before the simulation:-

And here is the result from the simulation:-

Any other suggestions on how to stop the "fixed/nailed" parts from moving? Crrently, nailing appears to do nothing whatsoever................

OK, back again. As I am trying what I am trying (difficult to pose at the best of times), I have spent way too much time getting this loincloth to fit and have now gotten to the point where I have run out of tweaks to dial and yet I simply cannot get the back of it to sit on her arse! How can I move that part closer into the figure? I want to do this so I can then go back into VWD and pin/nail/staple/superglue the chain, etc in place and get the loin to drape properly. I realise that the loin has only a small cloth part, but I can't get that the way I want either. So, anyone that knows what they're doing (ie. everyone but me); how can I get that part (arrow) to sit right?

@Smaker1 I realise that the modeler is the person that determines how many polygon layers there are; what I meant to ask is, how can you tell that the loincloth has 2 layers as opposed to one? What do I need to look for in the model within Poser to determine this? Your render is beautiful! Given that you only wanted to show the drape and flow of the dress [which is fantastic and truly shows movement in a static image (exactly what I want to be able to do)], the lighting and atmosphere is simply lovely.............

@Biscuits, I just finished watching your first VWD tutorial. If this is your first ever attempt at creating a tutorial, well done! It's very clear (the text slides make reading the information quite easy and you leave each slide up for a while, giving the viewer time to read it (rather than having to pause the video as we all have to do with so many other free and paid for tutorials)). Coming from a teaching background, I am happy to provide you with some more detailed feedback/suggestions but I won't do that here as it may appear to others that I am being very critical. I offer this only to help improve your tutorials and reach a greater audience with respect to range of ability. If you are interested in further feedback, just email me (vanderminneATiprimusDOTnetDOTau). Lastly, keep up the great work; it will make a huge difference for so many people wanting to learn to use this great program. After lastly, a tutorial on setting up a loincloth would be great (yeah, I'm biased, but I gotta try......lol).

OK, I've been gone for a few days (PC issues - what else.) and wow, what a lot of posts!.....

@VirtualWorldDynamics "@Erwin0265 : Thank you for your offer of help for my documentation. I think it needs it.

I'm redoing the beginning of the documentation. I finish the next version of the program that will allow to use the dynamic modification. The future version will probably be the reference one for some time. My job will then be to create videos with subtitles that explain how the program works. I can tell you I do all I can to move this project forward." I'm happy to proof read the documentation (And perhaps change some things to make it easier to understand. Being very much a beginner, the documentation will definitely get tested with me :)). @ Smaker1, Thank you so much for giving my question your time; I do appreciate it. I am only really interested in images, not animations but realise now that it is beneficial to do a dynamic simulation with 30 or so frames to allow for draping. "You need simulation for the loin the rest can be fixed" - That would be fine but I have had little success fixing the rest afterwards. It's probably a gap in my Poser knowledge but I just can't imagine having to spend hours and hours to move all of the parts so they sit properly on the hips rather than in/above them is how it's meant to be done, yet I have never found a satisfactory method other than moving each part, bit by bit until it sits right (only to find it's off when viewed from another angle). I may as well just do it all in Photoshop (which I have done before but I know there must be other ways).......... "Nota: the loin has 2 layers of polygons: the number of subsamples must be higher to have a better result I think." - how do you determine that the loincloth has 2 layers? Naturally, the pose I have created is far more extreme that yours (Why make it easy for myself when I can stress myself all the more by making it near impossible? lol) which is probably why the whole chain tends to sink into the hips. Isn't there a way to "staple" the chain in place at T pose so that it stays where it should during the simulation? I tried to use the "Nail to Collision" feature but there appeared to be no difference. @Biscuits; you navigation tutorial already has 60 downloads (I'm #60 - downloading now); looks like there's plenty of interest.............

@Grimhilda. I had written a comprehensive response to all that you have written here but then my PC decided to delete it before I could post it (perhaps, lucky for you...). I fully agree with all that you have written. That being said, I do want to try to get this loincloth working as I tend to loose interest when I don't have a goal in mind,other than the goal to learn to use VWD (it's one of my vast collection of character flaws; I'm stubborn).......... I'm going to try to follow Gerald's suggestions and see how I go. Please feel free to advise any time I post results/questions; I can see you know what you are talking about and you have a generosity to share your knowledge; thank you. Regarding using natural painting media; I still do, but I also take a lot of painkillers simultaneously (not too great for the liver or my doctor's blood pressure, but then we all have to suffer for our art. I just tend to do so more literally than most); that's life. It just means I don't create as much as I used to and it messes with my head (ie. depression); I still hope that digital artforms will help me in the long run..........

@thehawkman. Although I do agree with you regarding the user manual; Gerald is working on it; unfortunately, he appears to not have been able to stick to his planned timeline. He has been producing videos but they are in French (he is working on solutions that will provide subtitles as he states that his spoken English is just not good enough). At the same time, he is answering everyone's questions, releasing continual updates and trying to sell the program here on Renderosity as well as RDA (with numerous obstacles to overcome in order for the program to conform to Renderosity's rules). I think we all need to remember, the program is written by a human being who can only do so much in a given timespan. I doubt that VWD's is all that he works at; I'm sure he has an actual job. A guy's gotta eat. Good things take time............

@VirtualWorldDynamics I use version 1.0.286.2290 ( the most recent version, I believe). The loincloth is part of "Zavia, Red Martian Princess for V4 (Martian Princess Base)" package by Gareeee. Thanks for your response; I truly appreciate you taking the time. I will try to follow through your suggestions and see if that helps.