How to Use dForce: Creating a Blanket, Draping Clothes on Furniture, and Much More [Commercial]

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  • PendraiaPendraia Posts: 3,591

    Thanks, this looks really useful.

  • TheKDTheKD Posts: 2,667

    Wow, glad I stumbled across this thread. Thanks for the clean documentation.

  • I'm glad I found this thread too.  Plus has anyone else played around with Hair using DForce?  I dont have any images that are good enough to share or have all the steps but I've gotten some pretty interesting results with Long hair and the way it drapes/ hangs/ collides with and from figures when I was just playing around.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    thanks for stopping by TheKD and Pendraia

    dawgsofwinter, there is a thread on dForce hair, you can find it here. I'd be interested in hearing more about what you have done

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited November 2017

    17. Creating Blowing Curtains.

    This shows another use of Daz Studio primitives to create a pair of curtains. I used Collective3d Portrait Vignettes Contemporary 4 as the setting.  It comes with blinds which I hid.

    a. I created a curtain using a plane primitive. I created a curtain rod from a cylinder and a curtain ring from a torus. I then made 15 instances of the torus and used the Align pane to line them up with even spacing. Two spheres were added at each end of the rod. Here are the settings for the primitives.

      

    b. I next selected the curtain and added the dForce modifier and a dForce weight node and painted the edges of the curtain that are directly under the rings. Afterwards, go to the main menu and select Edit/Duplicate/Duplicate Node Hierarchies to create a copy of the first curtain along with its attached weight map. Position everything as shown in the first image below. Note that the curtains are a little short. That’s on purpose as they will grow with the surface settings I chose (discussed in the next step). The top edge of the weight map is shown in the second image below.

     

    c. Here are the Surface-Simulation-Structure settings I used. These were chosen to give more folds in the hanging curtains, otherwise they look relatively flat. Note that every value shown in white text is a change from the default value (the default values have black text).

    I also had air resistance set to 0.47 on the Simulation Settings pane. That wasn’t intentional, it was a left-over from a prior simulation I ran but I kept it throughout. It’s biggest effect was to dampen the effect of wind in a later step.

    d. The two curtains have a slight gap between them. Even with the gap, they will interact with each other during the simulation, acting as if they were pinned together. To manage this, I hid curtain 2, simulated curtain 1, then hid it. Unhide curtain 2, simulate it, then unhide curtain 1. You will end up with something like this:

    e. Next we want to add a wind node and position it outside the window as shown below. Note that I have the window positioned within the falloff length of the wind node.  

    f. If you run the simulation now, the curtains will simulate just as they did in step d, as the window glass is blocking the wind (just like in a real house). There are two ways to proceed. If you want the full window open (top and bottom), select Wall and Floor in the Scene pane, then go to the Tool Settings pane, choose Geometry Editor from the drop-down box at the top, and under the Surfaces listing, close the eye under the surface Window_Glass.

    If you want just the lower window open as I did, after going to the Geometry Editor, click on the lower window pane in the viewport. It will change color to show it is selected.

    Next, right click in the viewport and choose Geometry Assignment/Create Selection Set from Selected… and give the set a name like lower window.

    There will be a new listing in the Geometry Editor pane under Selection Sets. Close the eye by lower window.

    g. Set wind to 2 mph on the wind node. Run the simulation. You’ll get something similar to this, as if a gentle breeze is coming in the window.

    With this gentle breeze, I was able to simulate the two curtains at the same time as they did not latch on to one another as they did in the static simulation of step d.

    I bumped the wind up to 5 mph (remember that the wind in dForce seems much stronger than real life) and the curtains are really blowing out. In this case, they did latch on to one another so I simulated each curtain separately as I did in step d.

     

    plane primitive.jpg
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    cylinder primitive.jpg
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    torus primitive.jpg
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    dForce curtain setup.jpg
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    dForce curtain setup closeup + map.jpg
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    dForce curtain surface settings.jpg
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    dForce hanging curtain.jpg
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    dForce lower window.jpg
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    dForce lower window assign geo.jpg
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    dForce lower window select set.jpg
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    dForce hanging curtain blowing 2mph.jpg
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    dForce hanging curtain 5 mph.jpg
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    dForce curtain length.jpg
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    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited December 2017

    A new updated PDF is available.  Revision 3, 57 pages. Covers up through topic 17, the last item I posted. 

     

    EDIT: new version posted. Link to it is found at top of first post.

    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,092

    Thank you for the latest tips and the revised pdf. Still following this with great interest.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Thanks MelanieL. I keep coming up with more things to try!

  • wsgentrywsgentry Posts: 572
    edited November 2017

    This may seem like a basic question, but how do you keep the cube in the ball simulation from rising off the 0 Y?  What's happening when I do the simulation is this: The cube never really inflates on top  Instead, the cube rises.  The ball and the inside surface sinks with the walls of the cube remaiing intact.

    Scott

    Post edited by wsgentry on
  • sapatsapat Posts: 1,735
    RGcincy said:

    Thanks MelanieL. I keep coming up with more things to try!

    That's good news Richard!  I'm happily following along and it's making sense!  You're a good teacher.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited November 2017
    wsgentry said:

    This may seem like a basic question, but how do you keep the cube in the ball simulation from rising off the 0 Y?  What's happening when I do the simulation is this: The cube never really inflates on top  Instead, the cube rises.  The ball and the inside surface sinks with the walls of the cube remaining intact.

    Scott

    Good question! I gave it a look with just a cube and sphere and saw the same behavior you did: the cube rises and the top doesn't inflate. With my original scene I had a plane larger than the cube on the ground. Turns out that is essential, as it holds onto the cube. If the plane is smaller than the cube, it will hold the midle of the cube but it's edge will rise. I'll make note of that in the directions. Glad you asked!

    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    sapat said:

    That's good news Richard!  I'm happily following along and it's making sense!  You're a good teacher.

    Why thank you sapat! I enjoy learning new things and sharing what I learn.

  • sapatsapat Posts: 1,735
    RGcincy said:
    wsgentry said:

    This may seem like a basic question, but how do you keep the cube in the ball simulation from rising off the 0 Y?  What's happening when I do the simulation is this: The cube never really inflates on top  Instead, the cube rises.  The ball and the inside surface sinks with the walls of the cube remaining intact.

    Scott

    Good question! I gave it a look with just a cube and sphere and saw the same behavior you did: the cube rises and the top doesn't inflate. With my original scene I had a plane larger than the cube on the ground. Turns out that is essential, as it holds onto the cube. I'll make note of that in the directions. Glad you asked!

    That's what I found too when working through that scene.  My cube kept crushing up around the sphere.  Finally dawned on me that maybe I needed a plane, and that's what worked! I didn't add a modifier or anything to the plane, but maybe just the fact that it's there acting as a physical ground is what keeps it....well, grounded!

  • wsgentrywsgentry Posts: 572
    edited November 2017

    Thank you! It works fine, now.  What I'm trying to do now is expand the stool into a mattress for a bed.  I'm puttng a figure on top of the mattress with no surface penetration and letting the swelling cause the character to slightly sink into the mattress.  Lot's of experimentation ahead.

    Thank you so much for the tutorial and all you do.  This is incredibily useful!

    Scott

    Edit:  I've attached a quick render showing results and a screen shot showing the indentations better.

    Edit 2: Using the complete hotel room interior environment, it's possible to make cube just sligtly bigger than the bed, slide it over the exisiting bed, run the sim...Interesting thatI made the cube just slightly larger than the existing bed and got the results below.  Thank you again for showing us how it's done! This is fantastic--and no plane was required. It appears that as long as there is no rotation applied that the cube will anchor to flat surfaces below it.

    Girl on bed.png
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    Girl on bed.JPG
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    Hotel room bed.JPG
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    Post edited by wsgentry on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Scott, thanks for the update. Glad it's working for you now. Feel free to share any other experiments you do.

  • I think this is a brilliant thread way better than the DAZ Docs, at least I can understand in practical terms what you are talking about.

    One question? how do you save a dForce weight node to use later ? or save it with the clothing item ?

  • wsgentrywsgentry Posts: 572
    edited November 2017
    RGcincy said:

    Scott, thanks for the update. Glad it's working for you now. Feel free to share any other experiments you do.

    No.  Thank YOU! 

    The hotel bedroom scene bed comes with two bed covers.  One covers the new mattress (cube) perfectly if you expand X and Z in the scale settings.  Now comes the work. It explodes when you raise it over a character and try to run sim with the blanket settings in the tutorial. I'm thinking the material is too thick, so I'm going to check out the clothes draping tutorial to see if there's something there to help.  If no luck there, l'll re-read the docs published in the stickies to see if there is a solution.  If it's a no go I'll just do the blanket sim.

    Thank you again!

    Scott

    Edit, the two top covers in the scene explode when trying to simulate.  I had to use a plane.  They exploded because the mesh is very, very irregular.   The two pillows in the scene have a very irregular mesh, too. Anyone know how to fix that?

    Post edited by wsgentry on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276

    Awesome tutorials! I did a mattress and blanket with your tutorials. :) Thank you so much! :D 

     

  • wsgentrywsgentry Posts: 572

    Awesome tutorials! I did a mattress and blanket with your tutorials. :) Thank you so much! :D 

     

    Awesome!  Isn't this a great thread!  Great work!

    Scott

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276

    @wsgentry Thank you, Scott. :)

    It IS a great thread, I agree. I'm learning a lot!

  • wsgentrywsgentry Posts: 572

    @wsgentry Thank you, Scott. :)

    It IS a great thread, I agree. I'm learning a lot!

    Same here. It's fun to play with dForce.  This thread is a total eye opener!

    Scott

     

  • sapatsapat Posts: 1,735
    wsgentry said:

    @wsgentry Thank you, Scott. :)

    It IS a great thread, I agree. I'm learning a lot!

    Same here. It's fun to play with dForce.  This thread is a total eye opener!

    Scott

    Nods in agreement. These threads have opened new worlds to me in terms of dforce being usable for so much more than just clothes.

  • DaWaterRatDaWaterRat Posts: 2,882

    Now that Hexagon is free (and since they're planning to update it) there really are a lot of possibilities.

    I did all the set up modeling for my mongolian tent in Hex, including (though it doesn't show) the crown and roof poles under the roof cover.  So if you need something to drape in a shape that's not a simple primative, you can crack it out in Hex (okay, maybe not crack it out, until you get familiar with it) and then bring it in to DS to drape. :)

  • wsgentrywsgentry Posts: 572

    Unfortunately Hexagon only works with Mac's.   My old iMac is likely compatible.  When I complete my recovery from surgery, I'll be sure to check it out!  Thanks!

    Scott

  • wsgentrywsgentry Posts: 572
    edited November 2017

    If anyone is working using the Windows version of DAZ, how did you get negative air resistance?  On my machine, the lowest it will go is zero.

    Thanks in advance,

    Scott

    Post edited by wsgentry on
  • DaWaterRatDaWaterRat Posts: 2,882
    wsgentry said:

    Unfortunately Hexagon only works with Mac's.   My old iMac is likely compatible.  When I complete my recovery from surgery, I'll be sure to check it out!  Thanks!

    Scott

    I've found Hex to work pretty well with my Windows 7 machine.  Of course, I try to keep things relatively small (file size) too.

    Or am I mixing up what you're talking about?

  • DaWaterRatDaWaterRat Posts: 2,882
    wsgentry said:

    If anyone is working using the Windows version of DAZ, how did you get negative air resistance?  On my machine, the lowest it will go is zero.

    Thanks in advance,

    Scott

    On the slider there's a lock, a heart and a gear.  Click on the gear and then peramiter settings.  Uncheck "use limits"

    You can now set air resistance to negative.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    I think this is a brilliant thread way better than the DAZ Docs, at least I can understand in practical terms what you are talking about.

    One question? how do you save a dForce weight node to use later ? or save it with the clothing item ?

    Thanks Midnight_stories. I've only been saving as part of a scene, so the weight map remains part of the scene and can be reloaded. I'm not sure about saving it as a preset. Anyone?

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    wsgentry said:

    Edit, the two top covers in the scene explode when trying to simulate.  I had to use a plane.  They exploded because the mesh is very, very irregular.   The two pillows in the scene have a very irregular mesh, too. Anyone know how to fix that?

    Do you have Self Collide on or off (this is a surface setting found under Simulation/Collision)? I have found that some items which explode will stop if you turn this to OFF. The other thing I've seen done is to find the offending area (if it's small, like a zipper) and use a weight map to set influence to zero for those polys.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Thanks for sharing Divamakeup - that turned out really nice. It looks so much better to see flex in objects made with soft fabrics.

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