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Thanks L'Adair - I'm not on my 3D laptop just now but I will give that a go when I do and try this out
Thnaks L'Adair for sharing all this info that you have learnt. I still haven't updated DS with dforce but when I do I will have a play.
Hi @Szark. Thank you for stopping by.
Waiting isn't a bad idea, actually. dForce is still a work in progress; In my opinion, Daz should have waited until it was more stable to release it. It's a lot of fun to play with, and some stunning results can be achieved. But a feature that locks up your program, or throws errors at you as often as not, isn't ready for the general public. Still, it's going to be awesome when they get the wrinkles ironed out. (Yes, the clothing reference was intentional. lol)
In any event, I'm glad you found the thread. I hope it will be helpful when you take the leap to 4.10
Time for a little fun.
Explosions can be really cool looking, even if it's not the look you were going for. Here are a few I've managed to create lately.
The Medieval Cape
The Medieval Cloak
The Medieval Robe
The skirt from Boho for G3F
The next two are from the lace overdress from the Platinum Cocktail for G2F. This explosion was so spectacular, I rendered it from several angles. I think I can work it into a background or two in Photoshop. The first render is the default view, and truncated on all four sides.
And the second one is the full explosion, from the back. See that real shiny lumpy bit? That's the zipperpuller and the souce of the explosion! And if you look closely, you can make out the right arm and both legs of the G2F figure.
Wow... I'm impressed
I am sure it will be a big help.
Hmm so some special F/x possiabilites with things explodeing
Great abstract art there, L'Adair!
Looks like a modern art installation!
I found if I place the character on the screen and add the clothes that I'm trying to use dForce on the program won't crash. If I add morphs, cloths and background then it crashes my program. I have 16 gigs of memory and a 1 gig video card
You didn't say if that's an Nvidia card or not, but even if it is, you're surpassing it's memory and going straight to CPU. Assuming you are using Windows, a significant portion of that 16GB is being allocated for the Page File, whether or not Windows is actually using it. If your budget and your computer can handle it, upgrading your RAM may help significantly. And/or for a lot more money, one of the new 1070ti's with 8GB would be a good investment for this hobby.
FYI, I've said many times since getting involved with 3D and Daz Studio, it would have been cheaper to take up golf!
I've upgraded to the latest Beta, 4.10.0.118. and some improvements have been made to dForce. The explosions for the Platinum Cocktail dress are quite different than the originals, but I didn't render them at the time. I'd like to see what the explosions would look like if I went back to 101 or 107, but not enough to waste time with multiple reinstalls. lol
So thank you all,
@Nath
@Robert Freise
@MelanieL and
@sapat.
I'm glad you found the explosions interesting, too. From now on, I'm going to render the interesting explosions, so there will undoubtedly be more "modern art" posts.
Platinum Cocktail Dress, Part 1
The Platinum Cocktail for Genesis 2 Female(s) works well with dForce, but not "out-of-the-box."
@Hera reported problems with the dress over in the "Daz 3D Introduces dForce Physics Engine" thread, in The Commons. I decided to take a look and see what I could find, and discovered it was the ZipperPuller on the back of the lace overdress that was causing all the problems. How I isolated the pull as the problem was simple.
(These first two explosions were recreated for this post.)
As you can see from the image above, the explosion made it quite clear the ZipperPuller was causing the problem.
Above is the original render I did after using dForce to successfully drape the dress and slip on G2F. But there are still some quality issues as all of both the slip and dress had the default 1.0 Dynamics Strength. The shoulders of the garments were sliding down the arms of the model, the bodice of the dress stretched so much the extra fabric for the breasts was significantly below the breasts, and the hem of the dress dropped a good 2-inches below the hem of the slip. In short, the lace was too soft for the style of the dress. Here's another render with a different pose that really emphasizes these issues:
As I've mentioned before, dForce is a work in progress. The initial work I did with the Platinum Cocktail Dress was with an older beta, 4.10.0.107, I believe. I'm now using 4.10.0.118. this is important as the dress is behaving differently with the later beta. Notice in the above image, there are many spikes coming off the neckline of the slip, as well as some odd wrinkling over the breasts and around the armholes. Those are all caused by vertices that got caught under the G2F mesh, with Smoothing disabled. That wasn't an issue with the older Beta. Notice how badly the lace drapes, nothing like the real dress would. (No dressmaker would create a dress with that neckline and not use a lace stiff enough to hold it's shape.)
Oh, do notice the floating ZipperPuller! lol
As I mentioned, the bustline of the lace drops below the breasts. This closeup image really demonstrates that:
Part 2 is further down this page. You can scroll down, or click here to jump to the post. This link does not open in a new window.
I know that d-force is supposedly not working with hair but I have this render of a unicorn grazing. The mane goes stright back. I thought it would look cool if the hair would drape. Any idea how I would do this. Or should I try to paint the mane?
I haven't tried anything with hair, yet. I think it's worth a try. Both the SF and DA Unicorns are based on the Daz 2 Horse. The mane and tail are separate objects, so you should be able to apply a dForce Modifier to the mane. Than add a dForce Weight Node. Most of the mane would need to be strong, 80-100% weight, but near the neck it would need to be 0-20%.
I can't test it out for a couple more hours, but when I get back, I'll see if I can make the mane "flow" with gravity. Which unicorn, and what pose are you using?
Sickle Yeild Unicorn and the pose is Grazing 1
Okay. If you're willing to put in the extra work, it can be done. However, you're not going to be able to use this solution with both the left and right mane at the same time. I used the left mane as it's the side facing your camera. Also, you want nothing in the scene that isn't interacting with the mane. You'll need some sort of ground, but a simple, 1 poly plane may be better than the ground you're currently using in the scene.
Read the post on using the Geometry Editor Tool, if you are unfamiliar with it, as you'll need to create a Selection Set of polys on each mesh strip of the mane. There are three material zones and each zone consists of a number of unconnected meshes. Parts of the mane will fall off the animal if the first few polys of the upper edges aren't set to very low weights. When testing this, I named the Selection Set "ManeRoots".
Apply the dForce Modifier: Static Surface to the Daz Horse 2 (Unicorn) and set Friction as low as it will go. You'll probably need to increase the Collision Offset, too. I have mine set to 0.50.
Select the mane and apply the dForce Modifier: Dynamic Surface.Then add a Push Modifier. (Scene Menu->Edit->Geometry->Add Push Modifier; the name isn't important.) In the Parameters tab, set the Push Modifier to 0.20.
With the mane still selected, make the Geometry Editor Tool active. Select the top edge polys of all the mesh sections and create a Selection Set. It will probably be easiest if you use the Geometry Editor Tool to hide two of the three materials zones while you work, until you've got a Selection Set with edge polys from all the mesh sections.
Make the Node Weight Brush Tool active. First "Select All," then Weight Editing->Fill Selected… Apply 80-100% weight. Clear Selection and then select your saved Selection Set; Weight Editing->Fill Selected… Apply 0-20% weight. Invert the selection, (Ctrl+/) and then Weight Editing->Smooth Selected… In the dialog, try setting it to 35% and 50 iterations.
Open Simulation Settings, and set Frames To Simulate to Animated (Use Timeline Play Range). Open the Timeline, (bottom of the DS window.) In the lower left corner, change the total frames from 31 to 121. With the marker at Frame 0, select the Unicorn and and zero everything. (Ctrl+Shift+F) The shape should now be the default Horse 2.
Expand the bones of the unicorn in the Scene tab and select Pelvis. (All of the following Transforms will be to the Pelvis.) Open the Parameters tab and select Transforms. Move the marker down the Timeline to Frame 10. Set yTrans to 150.00 and zrot to -90.00. Move down the Timeline to Frame 20. Set xrot to 25 and zrot to -90.00. Move to Frame 30. Set xrot to 25.00 and zrot to -90. Move to Frame 90. Apply the pose, Grazing 1, to the unicorn. Set yTrans to 50.00. In the Shaping tab, under Actor->Breeds, apply the Unicorn morph(s). Move to Frame 100. Set yTrans to 0.00..1
Move the Timeline marker back to Frame 0.
Save your scene.
Open the Simulate Settings and Simulate. (Crossing fingers and/or holding breath is optional.)
Now, all that moving around of the figure and adding in collision, etc. was because the mane would fall into the shoulder and stick. And keeping it above the ground when the pose was applied allow the mane to fall straight, in a more natural direction.
Platinum Cocktail Part 2
You can find Part 1 here.
Here's the Platinum Cocktail Dress with dForce on G2F using a pose from Oreschnick Poses: Mothers and their Daughters Poses. The hands look odd because the "daughter" isn't in the render, but I wanted a pose with arms away from the body. In the above render, the lace on the arms is actually lying on the skin, with a nice wrinkle at the elbows. Through the bodice, the lace retains it's shape but flows nicely in the skirt.
I originally created the weight maps for the dress in another scene, the original with Bijou, and I captured the viewport of those weights. I'll share those captures below. But I'd also like to mention, It's easy to copy weight maps from one to another of like objects. With the Node Weight Brush Tool active, select the dForce Modifier Weight Node of the dress in the scene tab, open the Tool Settings tab and right-click on the Influence Weights listed under dForce Simulation. The popup menu has four options, but at this point, only Copy Selected and Remove Selected will be available. Click on Copy Selected. If you right-click on Influence Weights again, Paste Selected and Merge Into Selected will also be available, as there is a weight map in the clipboard. Now select the dForce Modifier Weight Node for the target dress, open the Tool Settings, right-click and Paste Selected to the Influence Maps.
Sadly, it is not possible to paste or merge the weight maps from the dress to the slip. What a timesaver that woud be.
Here are the weights I assigned to the slip:
And here are the weights I assigned to the dress:
These images are Viewport draws, not screen captures, and the colors are somewhat washed out. I used 100% weights on the bulk of the slip, and on the sleeves and skirt of the lace dress. I painted the lesser weights on the neckline of the slip, and the bodice and neckline of the dress. If I were to do this now, I would do things more like I did for the Medieval Cloak, selecting areas with the Geometry Editor tool, filling areas with weight, and then smooth the selected area.
It's important to note these final simulations were done in DS version 4.10.0.118. The current released version of Daz Studio is 4.10.0.123, (and the current beta as well.) There were some updates to dForce between versions and I have not tested the Platinum Cocktail in the latest version.
Thank you for this thread. It's been helpful. I just bought the Miellyn Bundle and daz keeps going into not responding mode when I run the simulation. My character does have morphs on them and they are not optional for my project. I've deleted a lot of extra stuff from the scene because the first time it just completly stopped running, was taking zero cpu resources. I've got tons of memory, hd space, and a great graphic card but it is not nvidia. An nvidia card will be my next big purchase. Normally when I get the not responding message in daz it's because dazt is hogging all my resources. This time it stays between 12-13% on cpu usage and 26% udsage of memory so I'm not sure what else I can do to tweak this. If I knew what item was causing the issue I guess I could alter it like you did the zipper. Suggestions?
I just tried to simulate a long t-shirt type dress from Adam Thwaites And it blew up al over the place, is there something I can do to solve this?
1) Make sure Self Collide in the Surfaces Tab is turned to OFF.
2) Make sure that the pose doesn't have the fingers going into the shirt during the simulation.
Try that and see if it helps. I find doing those two things often fixes explossion issues.
Part 2 of the Platinum Coctail dress is posted, further up on this page. You can scroll up, or click here to jump to the post. This link does not open in a new window.
What do you do when you're in the middle of a project, redoing a simulation, hit the Simulate button, and get this error message:
Groan. Curse. Panic. E, all of the above?
Here's a tip, something I stumbled on last night. (After going through all the responses listed above, of course.)
* If you have added a dForce Modifier Weight Node to your object, choose the Duplicate Node Hierarchies option and the Weight Node will be duplicated with your weight maps intact. See below for simple instructions from copying the maps from one Weight Node to the other.
** If you were using the add-on modifier, select the Add dForce Modifier: Dynamic Surface Add-On option instead.
So why didn't I just use the duplicate? I made the assumption if the original had lost it's internal flag that tells the program the object has a dForce Modifier, the duplicate wouldn't have it either. And I was working on a project and not thinking about testing my options. In retrospect, I should have tried to simulate the duplicate. I will try that the next time I get the error, which may not be anytime soon. (Fingers crossed!)
Copying the weight maps from one object to another is relatively easy, provided the objects are identical. I wrote about how to do this in Platinum Cocktail Dress, Part 2, above, but here are the instructions in a bulleted list format:
One caveat on the Weight maps: I wasn't using the dForce Modifier Weight Nodes last night, so while I can duplicate an object with the maps and those maps work correctly, I cannot verify the same is true if the duplicate is of an object that causes the No objects to simulate" error message.
Being able to duplicate an object with weight maps intact can have other uses, though. Like preserving the weight maps you know work while tweaking them on the original.
And as always, save your project often. You never know when Daz Studio is going to crash on you.
To date, everything I've written about here has been with older products that weren't made specifically for dForce. But not today.
Kindred Arts released one of the neatest products I've seen, and I was delighted for the opportunity to beta test it. The Ultimate dForce Bed consists of a set of frames that all work with an included pillow and mattress object. And of course, the dForce duvet. This product is as close to push-button as it gets, especially if you load one of the presets. Load a preset, push the Simulate button and moments later there's a nice duvet draping across the bed. For some people, that will be enough. For some renders that will be enough. But there are going to be times when the scene calls for something a bit more creative, and the dForce duvet delivers.
I recently used the Duvet on the Medieval Bed that comes with the MICK Bedroom set. The Royal Bedchamber came first, a scene featuring the shape "square" for Llola Lane's 2018 monthly challenge. I planned from the beginning to have a cat sleeping on the bed much like my own cat does, so I needed a "hollow" on the bed, a place where the cat snuggles into the bedding, rather than laying on top. To make that hollow, I used a cylinder primitive during the simulation, (and used the Timeline, not Current Frame.) I tried to recreate it for this post, and discovered there was another element in play. I got all those wonderful folds because, it turns out, I started with the bed at 150% scale, and ended the simulation with the bed at 100%. I still needed the cylinder for the void, but it was the bed getting smaller during the simulation that pulled the covers up and around the cylnder, as well as adding several wrinkles elsewhere on the bed. Here's the finished result of my recreation, using just the UDB product.
After the simulation was complete, I moved the duvet up slightly using Y Translate, and applied just enough of the Expand morphs to remove any poke through of the bed or the underside of the duvet. I like to combine some of both morphs, one expands just the top of the duvet and the other expands both up and down.The more Expand morph applied the thicker the duvet seems.
Here are some viewport captures to illustrate what goes on during the simulation. (Each image links to its larger counterpart, and opens in a new window.)
In The Royal Bedchamber, I used the Hivewire House Cat, with the free LAMH preset for long hair from Saiyaness, and had the cat sleeping on the bed. Because the scene was specifically for Llola's challenge and needed the squares to qualify, I used a long shot, but the cat was hardly recognizable. I used a pure white cat, and yet one of the comments on the gallery page suggested the cat would be more obvious "with a red or a white fur." This is because the lighting never reached the cat directly.
Now Newman, my own white, fluffy cat, all but glows in the dark. He "hides" at night, thinking we can't see him, yet that white fur catches even the faintest of light and reflects it nearly as bright as the moon. It's really quite funny to watch him. Anyway, I knew I needed more light on the cat, but with the long shot, it would look odd. So I did a second shot with another camera, added a couple of ghost lights to brighten the area under the canopy a bit, and put a bit more light on the mouse as well. (The mouse was not in the original shot.) The duvet was perfect for the close up, but the rest of the bed was not.
The MICK line of products wasn't created for closeups, and the furniture and other props are relatively low poly. At a distance, there's no problem, but up close, the pillows really showed the lines of the polys. To solve that issue, I applied SubD to the bed. The results were pretty humorous, but I only did a spot render of the pillows, which came out really nice and smooth in high resolution and subD of 3.
For a closer look at the pillows, as well as the folds of the duvet around the void made by the cylinder, check out The Royal Mouser in my gallery.
I wondered how you used the cylinder. Now I see! very creative.
Thank you, @RGcincy. dForce definitely lends itself well to creativity. (As proven by your thread!)
Great thread, will be watching this and hopefully pick up some tips. I tend to do only portraits but need to expand my horizons, and yet to explore dforce stuff.
I too wondered what you meant about using a cylindar, thank you for showing it here! Your thread is always so helpful, as are you. Thank you for that as well :)
Thank you, @TheMonk. I think you'll find dForce can work well with portraits. I've noticed a lot of 3D clothing tends to sit above the skin, which is really obvious with portraits. I've come up with a few cheats by scaling things like the neck bone of the garment. But dForce has the potential of making such cheats unnecessary. I suspect you're going to love it, once you get comfortable with dForce.
Thank you, @Worlds_Edge.
I'm glad you find my ramblings helpful.