dForce and Scene Visibility
marble
Posts: 7,500
I have only played with dForce so far and the results have not been encouraging - mainly because I have tried to simulate with non-dForce clothing. However, I just purchased a dForce compatible item and wanted to include it in a scene. I seem to remember that there is a requirement for everything else in the scene to be made invisible except for the figure and the clothing item ... am I correct? This turned out to be a PITA so I saved the figure and her dress to a sub-scene, ran the simulation and merged the sub-scene back to the original scene (first deleting the original figure and clothing, of course).
Again, this is a contrived way of operating and adds considerable time to my workflow. Is there a better way, please?
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Hiding things make the simulation go much faster but isn't strictly required. Also, some objects need to be static and visible in simulation so that the cloth can drape on them. My limiteded simulations have worked best when I make sure nothing dynamic is intersecting a static or other dynamic object before starting the simulation. Also, I do simulations where the simulation puts the static human model in a t-pose (a-pose) and then moves the characters & clothing frame by frame into the final pose, draping the dynamic things as it goes and sometimes that movement into the final pose will cause an intersection and the dynamic mesh with 'explode'.
Ah - clearly I have a lot to learn. I used the default Start from Memorised Pose option (I think that's what it is called). And I wouldn't have a clue as to how to determine between static and dynamic. If it means going through every object in the scene and switching options on and off - well, that's what I meant by it being a PITA. I think my sub-scene method is probably quicker in this instance but it is still very time consuming.
The reason my other results have not been encouraging is exactly because most of them ended in explosions. I was hoping for more stability from dForce compliant clothing.
You don't have to save it as a Scene Subset. In fact you don't have to hide anything if your PC can handle it and you don't mind waiting. lol However I find what tends to work best for me is just to hide everything in the scene tab (with the little eyes in the scene tab clicked). And have nothing in the scene visible except the dForce item and whatever you want it to collide with. (Just the figure and the dForce clothing in most cases.) Once the simulation is done just unhide the rest of the scene. Hiding and unhiding items doesn't take long unless it's a super complex scene, so I don't see the issue in doing that. It takes maybe a few more seconds to a minute to do so. :)
Dforce does add time to the work flow, but it also adds a lot to a scene when it's done right. So the tradeoff is worth it, imo. :)
For Objects and Figures, under Parameters --> Display there is a property called Visible in Simulation. You can toggle that off and it will keep the object still visible in the viewport/render but not included as a collision object in the simulation. If you have a big scene with lots of stuff, the easiest way to turn them off I have found is to first turn on Consolidate Properties if it is not already turned on. Right click in the Scene tab, choose Select --> All Figures, go to Parameters, click on the All heading, type in Simulation in the filter, turn Visible in Simulation to Off for all the figures, go back to the Scene tab, repeat the process but do Select All Objects instead. Then turn on Visible in Simulation for just the minimum objects/figures you wish to collide with. Some enterprising coder could probably make a script to do this.
I agree - I tried to find a way to select all and use the eye thingy but there doesn't seem to be an option to make multiple objects invisible. The thing is that all object AND their children have to be selected and then turned-off individually. Unless you know a better way?
OK - that's a way I would never have thought of ... thank you.
Oh dForce object will explode too.
Probably the best thing to do if you really what to push dForce as much as it's capable of right now is to work through this thread like it's a tutorial:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/208141/how-to-use-dforce-creating-a-blanket-draping-clothes-on-furniture-and-much-more#latest
And now this new thread too.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/249121/experimenting-with-dforce-on-older-hair#latest
Yeah - pretty scary stuff for the dForce novice. :)
I'm undecided whether dForce is for me. I was tempted to buy Marvelous Designer at one point but my bank statement brought me back to earth. I did buy VWD but had no luck with that so I thought dForce would be the perfect solution. Turns out it is far from perfect though. If someone could write scripts for the laborious tasks as we are discussing here, it might be more attractive.
You are in the same boat I am in. I have all these great DAZ clothing going back to V3/M3 since I used my PC+ membership to buy those things but they 9 times out of 10 will not cooperate with dForce although they often look quite good if autofit to a G8 character that isn't really fat or really muscular. So what is really a more sensible use of my learning time...
It is tempting to export that old PC+ clothing content to Blender and use Cloth Weaver to clean it up or make a brand new model in Blender / Cloth Weaver using the old one as inspiration.
Bonus is cloth simulation runs so much faster in Blender and Unity even on my 7 year old intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU.
I'm just getting to grips with Blender myself - only for simple stuff like clothing morphs but I like Blender a lot more now than I did at first. If I understood rigging and JCMs, etc., I would do a lot more work in Blender to make my own stuff or modify my huge collection of old stuff.