Confounding cloth beaviour

cobusp

Hi, I am working with a relatively complex scene in which one m3 character is being carried by another. Character 1 has a dynamic lab coat, which works fine when the Collision objects remain limited to the character itself and the ground plane. (pic 1)

But of course the lab coat will be affected by the other character's neck and arm. Now after adding parts of character 2 (neck, head, arms, shoulders) to the collision objects, the simulation for the lab coat goes bananas,

BTW, image two (where things go wrong), was snap shot a view frames earlier (fig. 1 's arm is still in the air). This is to prevent any intersection between the characters to the final position. I went to great lengths to ensure that there is no intersection happening between the figures during posing.

What else could be done to remedy the problem? I even changed the names of character 2'components, but this did not help.

Thank you
Cobus