eclark1894
Visionary
Also feel free to ask for help if you need it. I'm no expert, but happy to lend a hand if needed.
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Dynamic Clothing is the future?
- Thread starter eclark1894
- Start date
Mythocentric
Extraordinary
As Miss B said Dakorillon, just keep playing with the basics and follow the vendors tutorials and before too long you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. After all, they are the ones who know how their products work for best results including material simulation settings, which is something you can explore later once you're feeling more comfortable with the basics. I came from a traditional art background and got into Poser and 3D because I could not conceive of not creating art because of ill-health. I am, quite simply, a user and am certainly not tech savvy or any kind of computer geek. To be honest, most of those who decry the Cloth Room are prone to basing their criticism on their own preferences rather than what works best for the majority. If I can figure it out I'm darn certain you can! Have fun! 
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daywalker03
Eager
As a DAZ Studio user, I can somewhat understand why folks are intimidated by the idea of Dynamic cloth, since to me it's much the same sort of thing as the idea of making your own poses (but wasn't that what Poser itself was supposed to be all about, before the advent of pose presets?).
I was working with some of Lully's items, and by working with the same thing over and over again, I'm starting to get it, at least on one outfit! I don't intend to give up, but things are still in an uproar for me right now, so I'm doing more lurking rather than working. lol
eclark1894
Visionary
Speaking of practice, I'm going to let you guys in on a little present I found while finding vendor names for my directory. By all rights I should wait until the directory launches, but since I did put up this post... here's an early surprise for you. Optitex has some dynamic clothing for Poser.
Enjoy, and get your practice on.
Nudity on the page so search for Optitex Dynamic
Sorry. Not a fan of Dynamic cloth. If your projects are graphic novels, like most of mine are with anywhere from one to six renders a page, you don't have time for a dozen simulations for just one pic- only to have to go through another dozen for the next panel.
I have never been able to get dynamic cloth to work right first time through. I avoid it religiously.
I have never been able to get dynamic cloth to work right first time through. I avoid it religiously.
Thank you for the encouragement. I do intend to practice more. Life is just a little topsy turvy currently, so, as I said somewhere else, I'm doing more Lurk than Work!
eclark1894
Visionary
and as someone who has tried his hand at graphic novels, I certainly understand that dynamic clothing may not be for you. However, I also don't think realistic art is the preferable choice to be used in graphic novels as both are very time consuming to get right.
eclark1894
Visionary
Just found out something rather interesting. Did you know that Renderosity actually has about 400 or so dynamic outfits for Poser? All from different vendors of course. Some are from vendors like Karanta (76 outfits), and Lully (23) and some are from vendors who only have like 1 0r 2 outfits.
In one respect you're right. It takes nearly a year from script to final PDF file for each book. But the end result is worth it. Feel free to take a look:
Nova Trek by mdbruffy on DeviantArt
Darryl
Adventurous
Since the title of this thread is "Dynamic Clothing is the Future" I'm inclined to agree that its importance will rise over time. It will probably require Poser to upgrade its cloth room in various ways already mentioned. Over at Daz some folks are all in on Virtual World Dynamics (VWD) which I've not tried but apparently is more forgiving of how the original article, clothes and hair, were created. It seems to be conventional wisdom at this point that the bottlenecks to totally realistic renders are the old fashioned hair methods and the limitations of conforming clothing.
Dynamic clothing is essential in my opinion for anything that drapes; dresses, gowns, capes etc. It also allows newbs and amateurs to make simple clothing without worrying about rigging. Resizing or refitting dynamic clothing in Poser or an outside program like Blender is relatively simple and straight forward. Right now V4 and Dawn have the most/best dynamics in my opinion. I'm considering using morphs and scaling to create clones for both figs in order to easily use each other's content. My Genesis 1 and 2 exports for Poser already have V4 shapes so I'm pretty well covered.
The biggest problem with dynamics though are that the outfits tend to be very simple. No pockets, overlapping fabric, belts or other modeled niceties as is common in conforming sci-fi or fantasy outfits. Multi layered dynamics add to the time and complexity of getting it right. I'm very pleased and impressed by the work Lully is doing though. Her ability to add pleats and gathers (if that's what they're called) and other detailing seems a step above the standard fare. I didn't know such things were possible. I hope her technique catches on, that I can figure out how add those details in my own attempts, and that Smith Micro will commit itself toward improving the cloth room.
Dynamic clothing is essential in my opinion for anything that drapes; dresses, gowns, capes etc. It also allows newbs and amateurs to make simple clothing without worrying about rigging. Resizing or refitting dynamic clothing in Poser or an outside program like Blender is relatively simple and straight forward. Right now V4 and Dawn have the most/best dynamics in my opinion. I'm considering using morphs and scaling to create clones for both figs in order to easily use each other's content. My Genesis 1 and 2 exports for Poser already have V4 shapes so I'm pretty well covered.
The biggest problem with dynamics though are that the outfits tend to be very simple. No pockets, overlapping fabric, belts or other modeled niceties as is common in conforming sci-fi or fantasy outfits. Multi layered dynamics add to the time and complexity of getting it right. I'm very pleased and impressed by the work Lully is doing though. Her ability to add pleats and gathers (if that's what they're called) and other detailing seems a step above the standard fare. I didn't know such things were possible. I hope her technique catches on, that I can figure out how add those details in my own attempts, and that Smith Micro will commit itself toward improving the cloth room.
eclark1894
Visionary
I'm going to make the original post my first blog subject when I launch my directory. I haven't decided whether or not to allow comments. Frankly, I don't know if I want to deal with them yet. Still thinking about it.
Rokket
Dances with Bees
Earl, where is this located? Do I just do a google search for that name?
eclark1894
Visionary
yes.
Rokket
Dances with Bees
I know I do. I don't like the look of conforming clothing. In certain poses, it doesn't look right at all.
Going backward:
The Cloth Room is actually pretty good in terms of the technical engine. It could use some improvements, but that's not its biggest failing. It's biggest failing is how Poser uses it. For instance, _I_ know that if I want a better quality sim (like when something doesn't behave well), I should increase the quality using "Steps per frame," because I'm familiar with cloth simulation in Blender. This is a horrible and stupid label that refers to what the computer is doing to create quality. Something completely irrelevant to the user. If you looked at that and saw "Quality: 1," you'd know you were starting at a really low quality simulation. But the biggest issue is that the interface is designed for animations.
I used to say that we don't know how many people outside of the content community use Poser, but I think the most recent round of layoffs shows that it's not enough to justify the Poser team's irrational focus on professional animators as users. They kept designing for users that didn't want to use Poser, and making things harder for the people who did. If I had to make any suggestions on a UI revamp, it would be to come at _everything_ as if you were a content user who just wants to make stills.
For the Cloth Room, that means I should be able to load a figure, pose it, load dynamic clothes, and have the Cloth Room _automatically_ set up a sim from T-pose to the pose, with any rotation or translation being added optionally and without use of the timeline. And, to address the initial issue of fitting, it should have initial scaling options. For instance, I've fit one of my dresses to both a DD+ character and a flat-chested child without any problem by doing what I'd basically do in the real world. Scale on different axes.
That's a sort of rough idea, but the basic notion is that I shouldn't have to mess around with keyframes just to get dynamic clothes to fit a pose. _I_ don't mind that, but that's what messes tons of people up. Especially since 30 frames seems like a lot, but is only 1 second of time, which means that simulations set for 10 and 15 frames are happening in a fraction of a second, and the cloth behaves accordingly. And personally, I've just hit all kinds of bugs and mistakes, where things are on the wrong frame and I have to either move stuff around or (worse) I lose the proper state and have to fix things altogether. It's just mess no one should have to deal with when it's irrelevant to their end goal. You only need the animation aspect for making stills when you want to depict someone in the middle of extreme or rapid action (leaping, lunging, etc.).
What Lully does has always been possible, and is more an issue of how to model it than sim it. I'm pretty sure she uses MD. You can do tons with dynamic clothes. I've got dynamic necklaces with pendants that I sell.
People don't really want multi-layered or complex dynamic clothes, as far as I can tell. My simplest clothes are the ones that sell best. The ones that look more structured don't sell as well. And the best selling dynamic clothes by other people are the simplest. I've literally never seen anyone use any of the structured dynamic clothes of some of the vendors I follow, despite them being some of the highest quality clothing I know of (I want to say the vendor is cocco, but I could be wrong). The dynamic evening gowns that spent _months_ on the best seller list _and_ had people raving about them in the forums at Rendo didn't even have UV mapping, let alone thickness or details. Most of what people say they want in dynamic clothes does not fit at all with what they buy, or even what they praise. People avoid structured, layered, or detailed dynamic clothes in general.
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