I have learned a new trick from Nerd3D's Poser animation webinar. I knew I could use the Bullet engine to animate hair, but I didn't know I could do that indirectly by using a constrained collider cube to drive a magnet. Chuck has connected the two using the dependency editor, but I when I saw that, I was asking myself - what if I just parent the magnet to the collider? That's what I did to animate the ponytail below, and it apparently does the same thing. But of course, using the dependency editor allows controlling the range of movement, while just parenting will allow some crazy things if they want to happen.
Just like with a dynamic hair simulation, this method with the Bullet engine driving a magnet to deform the hair has something in common - neither can make the animation loop seamlessly. Dynamics are unpredictable, so the hair will go where it goes, and will not loop. I have ran the bottom of the dress as dynamic cloth, but I somehow managed to make it loop seamlessly. The way I did that was to make the sim loop 4X times and then I chose the animation section that looped the best from the bunch. This also means the simulations and rendering took 4X longer.
Never mind the jerky knee - I was just trying to use Chuck's method to animate the hair. This is cool because it gives me more control, it's easier/quicker to setup, and the Bullet engine simulation calculates MANY times faster than dynamic hair, especially when it's just with a single collider. Even if they were more, I think it would still be faster.
The bottom line is that if your animation doesn't have crazy jumps or fast turns, just parenting the mag to the Bullet collider works just as well as creating constraining ERCs with the dependency editor. The really cool thing is that the walking motion is driving the hair animation, so it gets realistic even without an actual dynamic hair sim. ^^
Figure is Dawn with Body Type-2 + Amelia face, wearing the Cheongsam dress, and the shoes are from the Laced Sundress. Rendered in Poser with Superfly (only 30 frames).
Just like with a dynamic hair simulation, this method with the Bullet engine driving a magnet to deform the hair has something in common - neither can make the animation loop seamlessly. Dynamics are unpredictable, so the hair will go where it goes, and will not loop. I have ran the bottom of the dress as dynamic cloth, but I somehow managed to make it loop seamlessly. The way I did that was to make the sim loop 4X times and then I chose the animation section that looped the best from the bunch. This also means the simulations and rendering took 4X longer.
Never mind the jerky knee - I was just trying to use Chuck's method to animate the hair. This is cool because it gives me more control, it's easier/quicker to setup, and the Bullet engine simulation calculates MANY times faster than dynamic hair, especially when it's just with a single collider. Even if they were more, I think it would still be faster.
The bottom line is that if your animation doesn't have crazy jumps or fast turns, just parenting the mag to the Bullet collider works just as well as creating constraining ERCs with the dependency editor. The really cool thing is that the walking motion is driving the hair animation, so it gets realistic even without an actual dynamic hair sim. ^^
Figure is Dawn with Body Type-2 + Amelia face, wearing the Cheongsam dress, and the shoes are from the Laced Sundress. Rendered in Poser with Superfly (only 30 frames).
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