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

barbult · July 2018

Mada said:

Looks like the solo shirt is not loading automatically fitted to the male - the easy fix is to right click on the shirt in the scene tab and select "fit House Brownie Shirt" and then select Genesis 8 Male. Or load the full set and delete everything but the shirt, either way works fine. The surface add-on not transferring with the shirt when fitted to another figure is something else entirely.

Thanks for the workaround tips. It appears that the "conform_target" : "name://@selection:", is missing from the scene section of House Brownie Shirt.duf. Adding that line to the file makes the shirt fit to G8M when loaded and makes it autofit to G8F when loaded with her selected. This does not fix the add-on not autofitting, as Mada mentioned. I am going to submit a help request. Maybe Daz will fix the issue with the shirt not conforming. It would be nice to have that working as intended.

Edit: I submitted two bug reports - one for the nonconforming shirt, and one for the dynamic surface add-ons not working after autofit.

RGcincy · July 2018

51. Dog Leash. I picked up the new Daz Dog 8 as well as Collars and Leashes for Daz Dog(s) 8. The leash has 19 bones with parameters to control the positioning but it can be a lot of work to adjust multiple bones to get the leash in the right spot. Here I used a helper ellipsoid to move the leash into position.

a. Load the dog and the collar/leash as well as other scene elements. Rotate the leash as needed so it is near the figure but not inside the hand.

b. Create a primitive sphere of 16 segments and 16 sides. Elongate it along the Z axis. Scale it so the ellipsoid covers the handle. This is the helper that will move the leash to the figure’s hand.

The reason to cover the handle is to keep it from coming apart during simulation. If only a small sphere is used, you’ll get the result shown in the figure below.

c. Set up an animation with the ellipsoid moving to a position below the hand at frame 8 and into the hand at frame 15. At frame 15, rotate the ellipsoid so it is parallel with the forearm of the figure.

Frame 0:

Frame 8:

Frame 15:

d. Add a dForce dynamic modifier to the leash and then add a dForce modifier weight node. Paint a weight map so the influence is removed from the clasp next to the collar. See image.

e. Hide the figure so it doesn’t interfere with the leash’s movement. Run the simulation. You will see a result like this:

Frame 4:

Frame 8:

Frame 15:

Frame 30:

f. A finished render with the dForced leash.

RAMWolff · July 2018

BRILLIANT!

barbult · July 2018

Yes, it is very clever! But, if the dog were pulling the unicyclist, wouldn't the leash be taught?

namffuak · July 2018

barbult said:

Yes, it is very clever! But, if the dog were pulling the unicyclist, wouldn't the leash be taught?

If the dog was pulling the unicyclist, the kid would be on his face on the pavement - he's riding as fast as he can to avoid that.

RGcincy · July 2018

Since the unicylcist is already coming off the front, the tension in the leash has been temporarily released. Plus the dachsund's short legs means they cover much less ground even when running fast.

Mada · July 2018

I think just getting a leash to dforce without a nasty explosion is awesome :)

RGcincy · July 2018

Since my image with the leash could be interpreted multiple ways, I did another with just a simple walking pose. I do find the fabric sides of this particular leash likes to balloon out. I ended up making them into a separate surface using the geometry editor. I set Dynamic Strength on both the fabric and leather surfaces to 0.86 and Stretch Damping on the cloth surface to 0.5.

RGcincy · July 2018

52. Effect of Density on Rotating and Horizontal Ropes. I’ve conducted a lot of experiments, some work out and some don’t. This one was to see if you could use a helper sphere to swirl a rope around a central point. I always start with default surface settings to see what happens and then look for adjustments. In this case, it turns out super low density values are the key.

a. Create a central pole with a cylinder of 4 feet length and 4 inch diameter. Create two spheres of 6 inch diameter, 16 segments, and 16 sides. Put one on the pole near its bottom and the other away from the pole. Parent the sphere that is away from the pole to the one on the pole.

b. Create a long cylinder that is 100 feet long, 1 inch diameter, with 100 segments and 6 sides. Position one end of the cylinder into the sphere as shown below. Do not parent the cylinder to the sphere. Add a dForce dynamic modifier to the cylinder. Turn self-collide off in the Surfaces pane.

c. Set up an animation timeline with 32 frames. Set a key frame for the sphere on the pole at frame 0. At frame 32, move the sphere up the pole and set Y-rotate to 1440 (which will give you 4 complete rotations). As the inner sphere rotates, the outer sphere will sweep in a wide arc around the pole, pulling the cylinder (rope) behind it.

d. Run the dForce simulation with default density (180). You will find the rope misbehaves, sticking to the center pole and wrapping up and over itself. The images below show frame 14 and 28 from both a top and side view. You can go here https://vimeo.com/281092215 to see an animated version of these simulations.

e. Density 25. This was the first density where the rope didn’t strike the central pole. The rope swirls around the pole but has an elongated shape.

f. Density 5. The rope mostly follows a circular path.

g. Density 1. The rope follows along a path that’s even tighter than a circle.

h. A density value between 1 and 5 seems to be best. These are much lower values than I would normally expect to use. As I mentioned earlier, an animated version can be see on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/281092215

i. I set up another scene with just one sphere and the rope embedded in it. I duplicated the rope multiple times and changed the density for each one. Below is an image showing the result of single frame simulations using default gravity and default surface settings, other than Density, which runs from 2 for the top rope (stayed horizontal), to 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, and 180 (default) for the bottom rope.

ADDED: As you can see, the lowest density value of 2 makes the rope fully rigid. Steadily increasing density values cause the rope to sag more near the point of attachment. I’ve noticed this sagging pattern before, where instead of a smooth drape from end to end, you get a lot of draping near the attachment point and a mostly horizontal section away from it. Since these were all done for the same time duration, it’s likely the horizontal section would fall further with added time. This also shows that dForce simulation appears to be working from one end to the other, rather than everywhere at once.

mkonjiale · July 2018

Congrats for your great work RGcincy!

Would it be easy to create a camping tent?

RGcincy · July 2018

mkonjiale said:

Congrats for your great work RGcincy!

Would it be easy to create a camping tent?

Thanks!

What type of camping tent? If using only primitives, a pup tent should be pretty straightforward (a plane folded over a stretched rope). A square tent with a pyramid top should be possible too. Flaps would be difficult unless you used a modeling program. Early in teh thread I posted a link to a yurt someone made with dForce. I believe they created a frame and then dForce'd the cloth elements.

mkonjiale · July 2018

RGcincy said:

Thanks!

What type of camping tent? If using only primitives, a pup tent should be pretty straightforward (a plane folded over a stretched rope). A square tent with a pyramid top should be possible too. Flaps would be difficult unless you used a modeling program. Early in teh thread I posted a link to a yurt someone made with dForce. I believe they created a frame and then dForce'd the cloth elements.

Maybe something like this: https://www.daz3d.com/happy-camper-essentials-59

or this: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/4-person-cabin-camping-3d-model/1092966

or something more creative you could think

RGcincy · July 2018

53. Effect of Density on a Rotating Cloth. Before I did the rotating rope discussed in section 52, I had started with a rotating cloth but had difficulty with it collapsing into a thin streamer. After discovering that very low density values helped stiffen the rope, I tried them on the cloth and got better results.

a. Create a 2 foot diameter plane with 50 divisions. Rotate it so it appears like a diamond. Add a dForce dynamic modifier to it.

b. Create a 3 inch cube with 20 divisions. Position it at one corner of the plane. Change the X-scale to be slightly wider than the plane.

c. Add a figure with a dancing pose and fingers pinching together. Parent the cube to the thumbs of the figure. Do not parent the plane to the cube.

d. Set up an animation timeline with the figure doing a 360 degree rotation around the Y-axis. I also moved the arm up at the 180 degree mark and back down at 360.

One thing that affects dForce animations is the speed of movement. If instead of the 360 degrees I used with the figure I used 1400 degrees, as I used with the rope in section 52, the cloth plane stretched and exploded no matter the density settings.

e. Run a dForce simulation at default density (180). The cloth stretches into a thin band (images show frame 16 and 32 of 32).

f. Density 50:

g. Density 25:

h. Density 10:

i. Density 2:

j. Density 1:

k. As you can see, lower density values result in a cloth that stays more spread out, but you can go too far as shown with density value of 1. Best results are between 2 and 10. One place where this could be applied is to create a flowing cape.

An animated GIF of the flowing behavior at a density of 2:

RGcincy · July 2018

@RAMWolff

Update to 44 Flying Cape

Back in June I covered creating a Flying Cape. I ended up with a mix of settings: (1) for a Shoulder surface I used Stretch Stiffness at 0.1, Buckling Stiffness at 80%, and Buckling Ratio at 5% (2) while for the Main cape surface I used Stretch Stiffness at 0.1, Contraction-Expansion Ratio at 110%, and Buckling Ratio at 5%. With my recent insight on Density, I went back and set everything to default except Density at 15. The animated GIF shows the result. Going lower caused the cape ends to pinch together too much (density 10). Going higher caused a lot more vertical up and down motion.(density 35-50). Using density alone is a lot simpler than the combination I initially had to use to get good results.

RAMWolff · July 2018

THanks so much Rich. I'll make a note of that info! Looks really good!

RGcincy · August 2018

54. Tie a String. I wondered if one could use helper objects to tie a string in dForce. Turns out you can as I show below! This is an experiment that might not have much use but it was fun to work out.

a. Create a primitive cylinder 12 inches long, 0.25 inches in diameter, X-positive, with 150 segments and 12 sides. I used 150 segments so there would be enough flex in the string and enough vertices so they would grab and not pass through. Add a dynamic modifier.

b. Create a second primitive cylinder 12 inches long, 1 inch in diameter, Z-positive, with 20 segments and 16 sides. Move this cylinder so it is just above and not touching the first cylinder.

c. Create two primitive spheres, 0.5 inch in diameter, X-positive, with 16 segments and 16 sides. Move and embed one sphere on either end of the long cylinder. Do not parent the cylinder to the spheres.

d. Your scene should look something like this:

e. Go to the Surfaces pane and set density to 2. This is important, as otherwise the string has too much flex and will catch and distort.

f. Set up an animation timeline with 32 frames. Just like tying a knot, the two spheres will cross past each other, than one will wrap around, dip down and back through a loop formed by the crossed string. The following series of images show the setup from the front and then the top view, followed by the simulation of the string.

Frame 4:

Frame 8:

Frame 12:

Frame 16:

Frame 20:

Frame 24:

g. It’s probably hard to envision the movement, so here's a GIF so you can see it in motion:

DanaTA · August 2018

I'd love to see that animation...but there's nothing there but a few underscore characters!

Dana

RGcincy · August 2018

DanaTA said:

I'd love to see that animation...but there's nothing there but a few underscore characters!

Dana

It should be there now.

DanaTA · August 2018

Cool!

Dana

freni-kyn · August 2018

RGcincy said:

This collection of tutorials is also available in PDF format. It is now split into two parts as it was too large to upload to the forum.

Part 1 - Sections 1 to 25 - 91 pages

New! Part 2 - Sections 26 to 48 - 81 pages

Index

Creating and Draping a Blanket Over a Figure

dForce Global Environment and Duration Settings (Gravity, Air Resistance, Stabilization Time, Negative Air Resistance)

Cast Off Blanket

Adding a Smoothing Modifier

Using dForce Surface Smoothing Settings (Velocity Smoothing and Velocity Smoothing Iterations)

Draping Clothes on Furniture

Friction

Creating a Clothes Pile

Various Methods to Correct Poke Through (including Push Modifiers)

Getting a Figure’s Head to Sink into a Pillow

Hanging Towel (introduces use of dForce influence weight map)

Wind Node

dForce Surface Parameter Tests

Creating a Foot Stool

Animated Posing for the Foot Stool

Head Scarf and Telephone Wires

Creating Blowing Curtains

Creating a Tablecloth and Napkin

Exploring Influence Weight Maps

Short-cut Key to Clear Simulation on Selected Item(s)

Dropped Papers

Banner Flag

Effect of Surface Properties Using Simple Sheet Drop - Part 1

Effect of Surface Properties Using Simple Sheet Drop – Part 2

Effect of Surface Properties Using dForce Primitive Flag Test

Dropping an Object onto a Surface

Creating a Kite from Primitives - Part 1 Part 2

Creating a Bag of Fruit

Deflated Soccer Ball

Explorations of a Half Sphere

Creating a Round Floor Cushion with Negative Gravity

Footsteps in the Snow, Sand, or Mud

More Footprints

Sand Trap (footprints)

Creating Icicles

Creating a Cape

Mummy Wrappings

Create a Skirt from a Cone

Create a Bandeau from a Cylinder

Create a Dress with Gathered Waist

How Resolution Affects Simulation Results

Using Silo 2.5 to Create a Shirt

Another Sirt Made with Silo

Flying Cape

Cylinder Helpers - Creating a Shawl

Cylinder Helpers - Part 2

Spherical Helper - Pulling a Cloth through a Ring

Cylinder Rigidity

Rotating Cylinder Helper - Wrap Up a Rope

Creating a Necklace Creating a V in the Necklace Chain

Dog Leash

Effect of Density on Rotating and Horizontal Ropes

Effect of Density on a Rotating Cloth

New! Tie a String

1. Creating and Draping a Blanket Over a Figure.

Back in June I posted a tutorial on using a push modifier to create a blanket to cover a reclining figure (see How to Use a Push Modifier: Creating a Blanket). Although it works, the push modifier approach has a number of issues: (1) it's fairly labor intensive, (2) the results rely on the skill of the artist, (3) the artist has to interpret how gravity and cloth properties affect the draping, and (4) it grows the polygons of the mesh so that the edges of the blanket do not pull in as they naturally would.

With the new dForce simulator available, I decided to revisit the idea of a simple blanket. The default settings of dForce didn’t give a good result but a few simple parameter changes make it work well.

Here’s a render of the final result:

Compare it to the result from using a push modifier:

As you can see, dForce gives much more natural draping of the blanket and instead of the mesh polygons growing, the edges of the blankets pull in. Using dForce, all the polygons remain square:

Using a Push Modifier, the polygons above the figure have stretched to become rectangular and the edges of the blanket remain extended and do not pull in as a real blanket would do:

Thank you for creating the pdf. I often get confused with the instructions when there are so many comments added.

Jack238 · August 2018

Thanks for the pdf. Nice job.

Robert Freise · August 2018

Thanks for the updated pdf

RAMWolff · August 2018

Oh goodie gum drops. Thanks for the new updated PDF #2 :-)

barbult · August 2018

How I got dForce Dynamic Surface Add-On working with polygons

@Mada posted several dForce Dynamic Surface Add-On tips in this thread, and she also used the technique in her House Brownie Outfit I purchased that outfit, and it was a good example of what dForce Dynamic Surface Add-On polygons should look like and how they should be positioned. She used them to hold a shirt closed, at the button locations, as if the shirt were really buttoned. This is a summary of what I learned from her generous tips. There may be better ways. I used Blender, and I am NOT a Blender expert, so I might have made things harder than necessary. These steps assume some basic knowledge of exporting and importing OBJ files in Daz Studio, using a modeler like Blender, and using the Transfer Utility.

Open the garment/object that you want to add the dForce Dynamic Surface Add-On to. In my case, I used the dForce Dynamic Surface Add-On to hold a shirt front closed, like Mada did in House Brownie.
Change the Mesh Resolution of the object to Base and turn off Smoothing.
Export the object as OBJ. I used the same export settings that I would use if creating morphs for the object.
Import the OBJ in your modeler. I used Blender. I used the same import settings that I would use if morphing the object.
In Blender, select the imported object, go to edit mode and vertex selection method.
Select a vertex in one side of the shirt (e.g. the right side near the button).
Shift-Select a vertex on the other side of the shirt (e.g. the left side of the shirt near the button hole).
Shift-Select another vertex on the second side of the shirt (e.g. the left side of the shirt near the button hole).
Shift-Select another vertex on the first side of the shirt (e.g. the right side near the button).
Now you have four vertices of the shirt selected, two on one side of the shirt and two on the other side. Hit the F key to create a new polygon from these 4 vertices.
Switch to face selection mode. Select ONLY the new polygon that you created.
Hit Ctrl I to invert your selection. Now you have the entire garment selected and your new polygon is NOT selected.
Delete all of the selected faces.
Now you have only your new polygon left.
Export that new polygon as an OBJ file. I used the same export settings I would use if exporting a modified mesh for morph creation.
Return to Daz Studio and import the OBJ file containing your new polygon. I used the same import settings that I would use if importing a mesh for creating a morph (the same scale as used for exporting, etc.).
Use the Transfer Utility to conform the new polygon to the original garment (Source: original garment, Target: new polygon object).
With the polygon object selected in the Scene pane, Add dForce Modifier: Dynamic Surface Add-On (Edit/Geometry menu).
If the original garment didn't already have dForce Dynamic Surface(s), add dForce Modifier: Dynamic Surface to it (Edit/Geometry menu).
Return the Mesh Resolution to its original setting if you changed if from High Resolution to Base in step 2.
Simulate and you should see that the new polygon dForce Dynamic Surface Add-On holds the two sides of the shirt together, because two vertices were on one side and two vertices are on the other side, preventing it from falling open at that location.
Turn Smoothing on for the original garment if you wish.

I did this from memory. I hope I didn't forget any critical steps!

RGcincy · August 2018

@Barbult Thank you so much!! I finally got a polygon add-on to work! What I was missing before was your step 17.

Your writeup was very complete I think. I used Silo instead of Blender and a primitive cylinder that was split down one side instead of a wardrobe item. An image is attached. Left cylinder has the add-on, the right does not.

Trying the same procedure with polylines did not work. I tested it 3 ways, all using the same exact vertices as the polygon that did work. One way used 2 vertices that were on either side of the split, the second way used all 4 vertices but not in a closed loop, the third way used a close loop. In all cases, the split fell apart. Not sure what's needed.

barbult · August 2018

RGcincy said:

@Barbult Thank you so much!! I finally got a polygon add-on to work! What I was missing before was your step 17.

Your writeup was very complete I think. I used Silo instead of Blender and a primitive cylinder that was split down one side instead of a wardrobe item. An image is attached. Left cylinder has the add-on, the right does not.

Trying the same procedure with polylines did not work. I tested it 3 ways, all using the same exact vertices as the polygon that did work. One way used 2 vertices that were on either side of the split, the second way used all 4 vertices but not in a closed loop, the third way used a close loop. In all cases, the split fell apart. Not sure what's needed.

Daz adds these new features but doesn't tell us how to use them. It is very frustrating. Maybe we don't really understand how to create a "polyline". Maybe Mada will figure it out and give us some more clues.

RGcincy · August 2018

barbult said:

Daz adds these new features but doesn't tell us how to use them. It is very frustrating.

I agree - details are very sparse on many features.

Mada · August 2018

The details on some of the things are sparse because they're still in development and can change at any time :) so better to keep on developing until its ready for prime time. There are some very exciting features coming though.

@RGcincy - glad you got it to work :)

barbult · August 2018

Mada said:

The details on some of the things are sparse because they're still in development and can change at any time :) so better to keep on developing until its ready for prime time. There are some very exciting features coming though.

@RGcincy - glad you got it to work :)

I would think that features added to a public beta should be documented well enough for the "public" to try those features and provide feedback. Otherwise, why not keep them private?

I am in the group that hopes polylines are leading to dynamic hair and fur. We've been led to believe that more dogs are coming, by the fits in the existing products. Some of those breeds would look pretty lame without some good fur.

Crios · August 2018

RGcincy said:

barbult said:

Daz adds these new features but doesn't tell us how to use them. It is very frustrating.

I agree - details are very sparse on many features.

Onr day or another someone must do a good DAZ User Manual. With WRITE explanations, not a collection of video tutorials.

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

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How I got dForce Dynamic Surface Add-On working with polygons

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