As promised in this thread https://www.renderosity.com/forums/comments/4476239/permalink, here is my workflow for draping conforming clothing.

Most of it is similar to using the cloth room with dynamic clothing. Load the figure. Move to frame 15 pose figure and if needed move other collision objects into place. Then I load and conform the clothing and set up the cloth room. But rather than clothifying the whole dress, select the hip and clothify that. If there are other body parts you want to drape also, select each and hit clothify again to add them to the simulation. Then select what you want to collide with. Then run the simulation.

Many times, I get a little bunching around the waist. When that happens, I will use the smooth brush in the morph tool to fix that. Note that this morph will look odd if the dress is in different poses, like at the beginning of the scene when the figure is standing.

If a lot of the clothing needs draping, I'll convert it to a prop. Changing conforming clothing to props is hit or miss. Depending on how the clothing is made, it may be difficult or not work at all. The first step I try is to use a script called figure to prop by 3d3. (https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/50705/figure-to-prop-102) I find that switching the clothing to simple bone skinning works best. It's for Python 2 but I've managed to get it to work in Poser 12 and 13.

You can also use the fitting room if you don't want to or can't get the script to work. To do this:

1 load clothing.

2 Hide and body handles.

3 switch the skinning method to poser unimesh

4 switch to the fitting room tab

5 create a new session with the clothing as the object and a figure as the goal

6 hit spawn prop and name the prop

7 go back to the pose room and hide the conforming clothing

If the clothing falls apart, you'll need to import it into a modeler, weld the vertices, and create a prop from that.

Each of these dresses was conforming and the skirts were draped

Let me know if you need more details on how to do any of this

Thank you fort this. I have until now always used props for the clothes room, but this has lots of possibilities.

Question: For transforming a conforming garment to a prop, would it not be easier to export it in obj format and reimport it? I've always found that to be a straightforward method, including for prop creation, where multiple primitives can be brought together as one object.

That does sometimes work too. I forgot that method. Sometimes, it comes back in unwelded. If that's the case, you can try changing the skinning to unimesh

I also forgot to add when using the fitting room, have the figure in a zero pose so the clothing prop doesn't intersect the figure from the beginning

Many thanks for this! I've seen instructions on conforming-dynamic hybrids before that sounded extremely complicated, but your version is very clear and simple. I'll definitely give that a try.

Thank you fort this. I have until now always used props for the clothes room, but this has lots of possibilities.

Question: For transforming a conforming garment to a prop, would it not be easier to export it in obj format and reimport it? I've always found that to be a straightforward method, including for prop creation, where multiple primitives can be brought together as one object.

Stiff areas are no problem in dynamic cloth. Create a separate dynamic group for the area and set the fold resistance and shear resistance high, say 500, and that part will not crease.

Stiffness can be adjusted in dynamic clothing.

You may want to leave it conforming if the outfit has a lot of details that aren't attached. Again, yes, you can add them to the soft or hard decorated groups but depending on how much it is and how easily it can be selected, sometimes it's better to leave it conforming.

Red, thank. you so much for taking the time to post this! Your explanations on how to accomplish these things are so clear and concise. Two thumbs up-- you ROCK!

Somewhere in the days of Poser 11 I made a script for this kind of 'post drape'. See description below. Not sure if it runs in the Python3 environment of Poser12 and later. It automates most of the steps, but in doing so it deprives the user of exact view of what is going on, so he may get lost. Solving that is beyond my Python fu so I did not bring it out commercially or as a freebie but made it accessible to who is interested.

My usual approach was to let the script rip the geometry from the conformer,  hide the conformer and let it set up and run the drape simulation.  From the results of that first run I tuned the simulation: make items that fall off during the soft or hard decoration, constrain areas that slip where they should not, and add any additional collision actors.

I found it useful also for fixing poke-thru on conformers that are skin-tight and normally should not need simulation. Thus a huge time saver for clothing for figures with a lot of JIM'S.

@RedPhantom: clever idea to use the fitting room 'spawn prop' function to turn a conformer into a prop.   

Anyway: here goes the description and downnload address of '1-2--DrapeIt: 

Somewhere in the days of Poser 11 I made a script for this kind of 'post drape'. See description below. Not sure if it runs in the Python3 environment of Poser12 and later. It automates most of the steps, but in doing so it deprives the user of exact view of what is going on, so he may get lost. Solving that is beyond my Python fu so I did not bring it out commercially or as a freebie but made it accessible to who is interested.

My usual approach was to let the script rip the geometry from the conformer,  hide the conformer and let it set up and run the drape simulation.  From the results of that first run I tuned the simulation: make items that fall off during the soft or hard decoration, constrain areas that slip where they should not, and add any additional collision actors.

I found it useful also for fixing poke-thru on conformers that are skin-tight and normally should not need simulation. Thus a huge time saver for clothing for figures with a lot of JIM'S.

@RedPhantom: clever idea to use the fitting room 'spawn prop' function to turn a conformer into a prop.   

Anyway: here goes the description and downnload address of '1-2--DrapeIt: 

 

File Name:
1-2 DrapeIt-w.txt.defanged

Description:
A tool to post-drape a conforming garment. The geometry of the posed conformer is copied into a welded prop, which is then draped for 10 frames in the cloth room. The original conformer remains avaialble but is made invisible. If you do not like the result of the drape, delete the prop and the simulation that was made, and switch the original conformer back on visible.

It aims to combine the advantages of conforming and dynamic workflows:

1 - the 'rough' shaping is done as a conformer.

2 - The dynamic phase solves poke-thru and takes away some of the 'stiffness' often seen in conforming clothing. Because the drape phase solves poke-thru in many cases the conformer rig can be rather primitive and does not need the labour intensive JCM's. Installation: - download and change extension from .txt to .py

Usage: Conform clothing to figure and pose. Make sure body of conformer is selected and then run the script. (via File|run Python Script in te menu) I used it successfully to drape V3 and V4 conformers on LaFemme and on PE.

Note 1 :The welding process welds only seams between groups that were made in the grouping process in Poser. It does not solve structural mismatch as may exist in conformers. You may need to refine details as hard or soft decoration. Note also that confomer geometry may not be designed for draping and you may need to provide 'anchors' via choreographed and constrained groups.

Note 2: This is not a final product. Carrying it that far would be outside my possibilities. I made it as an experiment/proof of concept. I offered it to Renderosity for inclusion in or to be used as inspiration for Poser 12. Feel free to experiment and use for your own purposes. If you see possibilities to improve it feel free and let me know. A copy would be appreciated. Do not re-distribute my work without my consent.

Link for download:  1-2 DrapeIt_beta

Poser peeps, please post your renders of conforming clothes that have been draped in the Cloth Room -- I'd love to see what you've done. Bring them on!

I could flood the thread with images, but I'll stick to a few

This first has a mix of conforming and dynamic dresses that were draped.

This is conforming

And the clothes all over were converted to props and draped

Grouping and I aren't friends, so I don't use it much. 

Some conforming clothing drapes a lot better than others. The old V3 tunic drapes quickly, but the results aren't that great. Maybe there's not enough polys or something. Valiant and Courageous drape quickly and beautifully. The Morphing Cloak drapes well, but very, very slowly. Still, I often use it as dynamic clothing, just because it's easier to put on top of other clothes, which is what you generally want for a cloak.

That first render is amazing. That's a lot of figures for one render. I assume it was done in one pass, with all those shadows and reflections.

The tunic isn't bad poly-wise. But you have helper bones. Those can mess up things. Higher poly items take longer. I use it a lot on the morphing fantasy dress. And yeah, Valiant and Courageous drape well.

The image was done in 2 parts, left and right. Those in the middle were in both renders to get the reflections and shadows.