dForce Question: Shirt cuffs don't "ride" up when arm bends?
mmitchell_houston
Posts: 2,510
This is a general question about dForce and other dynamic cloth simulators (like the one in Poser). Now, disclaimer time: I have only ever played with cloth simulation, and just a little bit. I've never really taken the time to work with it, but that's about to change as I'm doing a comic project and am seriously thinking about using cloth simulation to add some realism and interest to the garments worn by one of the female leads. As I get into this, though, I'm puzzled by something I see in cloth simulation, and that is that the software does a tolerable job of simulating the ways the cloth folds, but not the way it really moves.
[Before we start, I'm not "ragging" on this new dForce product (the design and textures look really nice): I'm just using it as an example.]
For example, I'm wearing a button-down shirt right now and if I were to move my arm upward in the same pose as that of the guy in this product photo (below), my shirt cuff would be pulled down about an inch-and-a-half, exposing more of my wrist (I added a pink mark on the photo to indicate how far down it could/should slide down). Why doesn't this happen with dForce or other cloth simulators? Are the cuffs "locked in place" or is there something else I'm missing with the way it's set up. Again, I'm not complaining, but curious about what's going on and what is possible to be done.
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Comments
With most dForce garments, they are rigged so they can act like standard conforming items. If you pose the figure then simulate dForce as a single frame, the shape from the pose will be considered the starting shape for the garment (this is why the sleves do not pull back in that pose).
If you make your pose at frame 20 on the timeline and have dForce set to simulate an animation, the sleve should pull back as he lifts his arm.
Keep in mind that there could be some parts of the clothing that are set to not simulate dForce, or that have settings on them that are keeping them from sliding back.
You might want to load only the shirt with nothing else in the scene and have dForce simulate an animation. If the entire garment stays suspended, or the garmnet hangs down from the sleeve cuffs (or collar) that means those parts are rigid and will not slide around on the figure.
This is a case of you can't have your cake and eat it too. dForce works on single layers of mesh, barring magic as soon as you make it thick like people are always complaining about dForce clothing not being then you get nice explosions. So in the case of this nice shirt either you have cuffs that don't ride up or you have single thickness mesh cuffs. Which is better? I don't know. There are ways to get around it with regular or HD morphs to apply after the drape which I've done with most of my dForce items, but I've noticed people rarely apply them even though there's an obvious preset for it right next to the clothes and a readme script saying to do it. I think next time I'll do it with dispacement maps so people can't forget to apply it, but that comes with its own challenges in Iray.
This particular shirt the best option would be to have a style morph that moves to cuff up on the arm that could be applied before or after the drape. >but< if the bones in the hand are in those cuffs, which is very likely with how far down they are and obviously not dForcing, if you slid the cuff up and had the thumb bent at all in the pose it would look quite weird.
Clothing by IH Kang in general have a natural drape with realistic wrinkles. dForce can remove all those lovely wrinkles, so I'm going to guess the PA is using weight maps to control the extent of influence on those wrinkles. You can modify the weight maps:
I also recommend doing the above in a separate scene, which you can later merge into the main scene. (Less stuff to load if you need to reload!)
ETA: This information is not intended to be instead of the other posts. When I started writing this, there were no other posts!
Hmm it would be pretty straight forward to use a dFormer to pull down the cuff.
Indeed.
Hiya L'Adair. Just want to say THANKS alot for posting those instructions. :)
Coming from other 3D apps, i find this Daz way of managing weight-mapping, and bones a bit different than what I am used to.
Tried your instructions on a dForce outfit I wanted to tweak the influence weights on and instantly got what I wanted!
Cos your instructions are so detailed and good at anticipating where users may stumble navigating all the little steps, would say your instruction writing is among the best I've ever come across.
So often tuts are written spending way to too much time on the simple and obvious and then skip or gloss over the more important little advanced stuff.
Don't suppose you have a tut anywhere for an overview and editing/manipulation of DAZ figure body weights?
I really do find DAZ system foreign. Don't mean that in a negative way. More used to chaotic weight painting by verts/polies by layers in a 3D program. But the way you explain it, it's like easy peasy.
Main thing is wanted to say THANK YOU. :)
TO ALL: Thanks for the feedback and the tips and suggested workaround.
I was really more interested in the WHY than how to work around it. As I said, I typically don't use cloth simulation and am trying to wrap my head around whether I should experiment with it, or if the inherent limitations of cloth simulation would make that an avenue of diminishing returns.
Thanks again for the feedback. It was very enlightening.
@mmitchell_houston "I was really more interested in the WHY"
@JamesJAB (...With most dForce garments...) and @Fisty (... dForce works on single layers of mesh, barring magic as soon as you make it thick ...) told you the WHY.
And I thanked you for that information. Sorry if I wasn't more clear.
I caught it the first time, and you're welcome, even if it's not really good news. So much of this job is trying to work around technical limitations in the best way possible.
Agreed. Learning about the software's capabilities and limitations is part of the process of creating digital art. It's really the same with all media, be they traditional or digital.
For example, when I used to work with water colors I had to learn how paper choice would affect the depth of color and how much pigment i could use before the paper began to bubble and warp. Also, when inking with markers, I loved to work with high-gloss paper because my lines were so incredibly crisp and I could get really great variations in my line thickness. BUT, the slick paper took longer to dry, so I had to work from one corner down to the other and give the ink ample time to dry before doing touch-up or going back to that area. I also had to keep tissue paper under my hand to prevent any oil from my hand sticking to the paper as I worked.
Anyway, dynamic cloth is definitely something I'm interested in exploring, but I will probably wait until my next project rather than try to learn it while I'm still trying to master the rest of my artistic techniques.
Thanks again.
Hiya Saxa. You're welcome.
Unfortunately, I have yet to tackle editing or manipulation of figure body weights, so no tutorial hiding in the wings.
Weight maps really intimidated me until I got hip-deep in dForce. I learned how to use the Geometry Tool and Weight Maps together to make older clothing behave in a simulation, in the process discovered I could use weight maps for dForms, too. And most recently, I've even used a weight map on a push modifier to add some thickness to a non-dForce shirt I simulated…
I suppose it really is time I give figure body weights a go! lol
Once again, you're welcome. I'm glad I could help.
Oh no! Please don't replace HD morphs with displacement in Iray. That would be a big step backwards, it seems to me.
Dude, its not gonna be quick. If you have a lot of stuff to get done, it might not be the best option. Its quicker than Poser, but it can be a crap shoot even if its dForce certififed. For one shots, covers, etc... it may be worth the effort but if you've got a lot of panels to do, it is likely not worth it.
On another note, how ya' been? Seems like we haven't crossed paths in a bit.
I was excited to see your name pop up here! You're right, I haven't spoken to you in ages. Guess I've been lurking in other forums and stuff. I definitely need to swing by your DA site and catch up on what you're doing.
I think you're spot-on, 100% correct. Projects that might benefit from cloth simulation include two covers and a single-page illustration. I might try to use cloth simulation (and wind) to get some interesting effects for those. But for the comic, I think I need to focus on getting more done faster.
Yeah.. probably not the best option for a comic, especially if you'll have two characters in close proximity.
I think that I could make it work by rendering the figures separately and then combining them in Clip Studio Paint for production, but I think it's really a matter of the time it would take versus the return on that time. In other words, would the results really be good enough to warrant the extra investment of the time it would take to set it up and run the simulation for each and every panel? I just don't think so. At least not with my skill level regarding the Cloth Room in Poser.
You can simulate each one by itself and save as scene subset and then put them all together before the render, or move them apart before simulating and then move them back together, so you don't have to do it in post, just a pay a little more mind to how you set things up. Things that are set up for dForce properly are much easier to work with than the poser cloth room, very little futzing and in a lot of posing you don't ever have to use the timeline, kneeling, sitting, hands on hips, things like that still need the timeline in most cases though.
Thanks for letting me know! :)
It really does take alot of gumption and time to know all these things, doesn't it? Your timing for your post was perfect, cos it was something I wanted to do pretty quick, but I knew it would take time to puzzle it out. And there was your post! Saving me time!
Suspect body weights usually leads to JCMs etc :D
Thanks again for sharing.
Poser Cloth Room is slower than Studio dForce by quite a bit. Unless its REALLY a simple sim. There are tricks, but... man, Poser's sim is old and outdated. Experts like BB still can't figure out how to make it work reliably. Is BagginsBill even still around? I've used both Poser and Studio, and I still can't always say I am going to know how a particular sim is going to react. There are far too many variables and even the published items have unrealistic material settings (y'know how some artists create their skins to look a certain way under certain lights rather than just look decent under a lot of setups? They do the same thing with the dynamic properties: make it sim the way I want, not necessarily in a universal way). There's still a lot of this stuff that is just not ready for prime time in a production pipeline.
I been busy, did a few things of late, but mostly working on other interests. I spent way too much money and that kinda burned me out :) Had to step back.
I definitely won't be the one to defend the Poser Cloth Room, that's for sure.
Honestly, I need something simpler with more presets. I use a program called Strata 3D and it has an AMAZING render engine for raytracing, photon mapping/scattering... it really is amazing with lots of depth and power in its materials library. But one thing I've always liked is that it included presets for common transparent/translucent materials, such as: water, ice, diamond, emerald, topaz, and so on. And these are "true" material pre-sets (which may be a reason why this program was a favorite with jewelry designs: they had a plug-n where you could export from popular jewelry CAD design programs and bring that file into Strata so you could easily create a realistic, beautiful render of your design). But I digress: back to the Cloth Room. I NEED presets like "stiff denim, leather, silk, cotton, linen, etc.). There should be a simple drop-down with a "standard" cloth/surface type and then you could start tweaking from that point on.
And while I'm ragging on Poser, why the **** haven't they modified the Face Room to work with M4 and V4? Really? One of the COOLEST features of the program can't work with the two most popular figures ever? Yeah, I've read various articles about WHY they don't work, but honestly, as a user it's just another reason most people have left Poser for Daz Studio.
I can definitely appreciate getting burned out on it. I do the same thing every now and then. Right now what keeps me going is working on specific projects that are intended for publication. Without that, I would probably just chill and binge watch TV in my precious free time.
Later, man!