No, constrained isn't conforming.  Poser dynamic cloth is kind of unique in that it has five different ways you can define parts of your cloth: dynamic, soft decorated, hard decorated, constrained, and choreographed.  Soft and hard decorations don't quite work like you might expect, but to put it simply they follow the dynamic mesh.  Constrained follows the colliding mesh (usually your figure) exactly. The effect is similar to conforming, but the actual behavior is very different.  Think of it more like dynamic cloth without the dynamics.  It follows poses and morphs, but doesn't wrinkle or respond to gravity.  Choreographed just stays wherever you put it, and won't change with the pose or morph.  If you want to make something that mainly works like a regular smart prop while having a dynamic part, choreographed parts are useful.  An earring with a dangly part, a mask with a veil, that sort of thing. 

Because constrained parts follow the figure mesh exactly, morphs can cause distortions.  Also, they'll follow the mesh exactly, not drape or stretch.  I've made shoes and boots that work great being constrained around the foot.  Thing is, most people don't morph feet much, so that's fine.   If you constrain an area on the lower half of a figure's breasts, and the figure goes from A to DDD with a big crease underneath and between the breasts, the constraned area will duplicate the change and crease in the same places.

That said, the most complex dynamic items I know of use constrained parts for things like the top of pants with belt loops, belts, and buckles.  I've tried to make that combo work  other ways, and it just plain didn't.  Cocco's dress pants just constrain the lot, and everything works together well.  But if I tried to use them on a character with a huge beer belly or a zombie that's almost flesh and bones, my guess is that belt would look awful, especially the buckle.  Considering there's not a huge number of people rendering those types of figures, it's not a huge issue. 

Esha's pareo over at RDNA that goes around the neck and overlaps itself much like that jacket uses constrained groups for the overlapping parts.  I haven't tested it, but it might not work so well on extreme breast morphs. 

That all said, dynamics won't necessarily solve your issue with shoulders.  I know how to address it in dynamic clothes and have done it, but it's also possible to do something similar with conformers.   Defined shoulders in jackets is standard feature of Uzilite's work, found at DAZ3D.  I'm guessing it's hard, because most people don't do it.  Conformers aren't really my thing, so I don't know much about making them.  But I've seen conforming clothes with good shoulders.

Dynamic clothing this complex wouldn't be something I'd recommend to a person who just wanted a jacket with proper shoulders.   Even for an average dynamic top with sleeves, you'd have to be careful about intersections at the shoulder and elbow.  With something as thick and stiff as a leather jacket, it would be even more of a concern.  As in real life, the jacket would somewhat restrain your figure's movements.  And that's before considering the how all those details would behave.  Depending on how you used it and your expectations, getting the performance you want out of it could be difficult or even impossible.  To be happy with it, you'd have to be happy with everything dynamic clothing does, not just happy with the shoulders.

For what figure?  And is constraining an deal breaker for you?  All the items I know of that overlap like this use constraining.  But constraining can cause some weird distortion with figure morphs.

The big advantage is the weight painting.  He starts with everything still and paints in dynamics.  If cloth had weight painting, it would be so much more powerful.

Well, and the speed.  The hard and softbody physics in Poser 10+ are game technology, and designed to work in real time.  According to SM materials, it's not accurate enough for cloth but it's really fast.

MLP - The best dynamic mesh hair I've seen was actually soft body. Ken1171 has done some amazing things with it:

http://ken1171.deviantart.com/art/Dynamic-Skye-406063970

http://ken1171.deviantart.com/art/Dynamic-Dawn-405912277

http://ken1171.deviantart.com/art/Ponytail-Girl-373172498

I've tried fixing interface problems in Wine by messing with the code in places.  Most of the preferences about UI look are specific to the type of element being affected.  There was only one type per line.  The problems I was trying to fix wouldn't have been an issue in any other app, because that stuff simply isn't hard coded into them.   And I've noticed a lot of issues when I've had to do screenshots, like how lots of elements aren't actually aligned with each other, even though they should be in a grid.  The Poser interface is built on a totally indiosyncratic and arcane base that has a lot of its functionality and appearance tied together.  I think those are in two lines now because it's either impossible to have an editable field and the plug together or really, really difficult.

Glad to be of help!

Just double click on the title.

Because the new name bar is editable.  The plug and name used to be the same element.  Now they're separate.  And it's much, much easier to rename your nodes.

OK.  It's just that users might not be able to do that if there's a problem with your material that your solution is masking.  Which it sounds like there is, because you're describing relationships between completely unrelated properties.  Diffuse and transparency, and transparency falloff and highlight visibility, shouldn't affect each other.

I'd look into it if you were interested, but you're not and I can understand that. 

No, highlights don't have anything to do with edge falloff.  Highlights only get controlled by your specular properties.  In your screenshot, falloff seems to be at the default of 0.6.

I'm sorry, could you post a full res version of that?  I'm really not familiar with the "Simple" view, and none of the text is exactly readable.  That said, if I'm reading it right, your transparency is at 1, but your falloff is at 0.6.  And you seem to have a highlight?  If you want something to be invisible, it should have no highlight, no reflection, and no falloff in addition to being fully transparent.  Falloff is meant to mimic the way weaves like nylon become less transparent.  It's not useful in general, because that's better handled with EdgeBlend. 

Still, I don't see from this why a texture would be necessary.  Diffuse color has nothing to do with transparency.  If you just want a plain, flat red, or even a red with a little noise to it, a texture is a waste of resources.  To render, textures have to be made into fully uncompressed files.  They get dumped into a temp folder that doesn't seem to get cleaned much.  They can be from about 10 to over 100 MB.   Unnecessary textures can waste more resources than a mesh with millions of polys.

I would like to start using Poser dynamic hair consistently.  Three things keep making it harder for me. 

One is the lack of a simple, focused tutorial.  I'd like something that just starts with how to add fur to a material group, or something like that.  Something that's just about how to grow hair out of something.   I'd even say one tutorial for just growing hair, a second tutorial for styling hair, a third for coloring (both regular and texture based), and a fourth for simulation settings and their effects with movement and wind.  After those, then maybe something about making a whole hair style.  But basics first, with an emphasis on normal use.  That is, either you've already made a prop or you're using someone else's prop.  

Two you've actually addressed here.  The way all the tutorials describe creating a whole hair style, and people seem to build them, involves many groups.  Which would be great if they could follow some sort of parented style system, sort of like CSS.  Instead, I find myself changing dozens of parameters in dozens of groups just to test. A tool to make changing settings easier would help immensely.

The third is availability and purpose.  Most of my dynamic hair choices are freebies from P5 or P6.  While I'm trying to stick to freebies to begin with, I've looked in all the stores I know of.  There's just not a lot to choose from.  I'm very grateful for the freebies and I'm very impressed by them.  But they don't use current hair tech (which has been seriously updated with each version of Poser), and they're really specifically styled.   They seem optimized for mimicking mesh hair stiffness, not simulating and moving with the figure.  I've yet to be able to figure out how to actually make dynamic hair color vary as much as my mesh hair textures do, though I know it's possible.  None of the freebies or products seem to have any hair color variation, except Tiny's cats.

My very best choice for a simple center parted short or medium length hair that moves is Wild Hair.  I use it all the time.  The best slicked back wet hair style I've seen is still Wet Hair by 3D Universe (then Dark Whisper) and the new ones by Valea.  The best long center parted hair I've seen is  Kyra hair.  I've come across one realistic afro, and I don't even know where to find it.  Oddly, the very best 20's bob I've seen was an old, old mesh by Vairesh here (Lulu hair).  I've never seen anything quite as well styled. 

It's hard to find good, simple hair styles today.  That's why people still use the old ones, like Kozaburo's.  Lots of hair styles are sleek and very even.  Strandy hair is only realistic for very specific types of cuts.

I'd love to see dynamic versions of all those basic styles.  Judging by how many people ask me where I got Wild Hair, and how popular Kyra Hair is, which is updated but has exactly the same look it did back at 3DCommune, I think others would be interested, too.

The whole reason I'm interested in dynamic hair is dynamic and reclining poses (leaps, dance moves, upside down, lying on the floor, etc.).  Every time I've wanted to use dynamic hair, I just wanted plain straight or wavy hair that moves.  Or a plain curly afro.  Can't we start with simpler styles and move to more complex updos, ponytails, and so-on? 

Also, am I missing some attribute of dynamic hair that causes it to be unable to drape?  Why is there this emphasis on it laying properly before the sim?  I ask because the little I have used dynamic hair has seemed to be fine mainly relying on gravity and collisions rather than laying perfectly before the sim. 

Oh, and I'm getting wicked fast calculations with bullet physics on.  It took less time to run a sim than to alter settings in 10 or more groups.  No need for proxies.

This is very confusing to me.  You should be able to control transparency in the materials with just the transparency slot (and its associated slots, but I suggest not using those).  It should never affect color, whether or not you use an image or procedural nodes or even plain root node swatch to control color.  And you should be able to make body parts invisible independent of materials altogether.  Could you post your node setup?

Something is happening.  You are adding materials to your selected object that it didn't have before.  They won't render because they have no mesh associated with them.  They're just clutter.

As vilters said, it means that you're loading a material for something other than what you have selected. 

I both understand and sympathize with your issue.  Like TrekkieGrrrl I tend to rely on the now unavailable Wild Hair.  But it does no good to emphasize what you don't want and speak in generalities.  If it helps you to vent, then great, but it doesn't help anyone in terms of actually being able make something you'd want.

If you want someone to make something for you, focus on what you want and post specific references.  If out of the hundreds of hairstyles sold and given away free you only like a tiny, tiny handful, your tastes are specific and particular.  If you were saying, something No one can meet those specific and particular standards without seeing examples of the real hair styles you're interested in.  I'd personally suggest trying to find references for only one or two styles to begin with. 

And generally speaking, when you want someone to take somewhere around 40 hours of their life to make something for you, you might want to try more positivity.  I know you're just trying to make your problem clear, but you're doing it by criticizing (though not unkindly or inaccurately) very skilled work.  Your average content creator isn't going to look at the list of hair vendors whose work you're not satisfied with and think, "I can please this person."  Encouragement is a powerful motivator.