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

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  • edited December 2019

    I'm using 4.12.0.86 and I cannot create a dForce modifier for a DAZ figure, either Genesis 3 or Genesis 8 using the method described here.

    Post edited by cheznous2029_28ab1adedc on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    That's the version I'm using. If you don't see the dForce menu items try this: from the main menu choose Window/Workplace/Update and Merge Menus

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    For those wanting to try out the mountain making approach, Instances to Objects is on sale today at a good price.

  • edited December 2019
    RGcincy said:

    That's the version I'm using. If you don't see the dForce menu items try this: from the main menu choose Window/Workplace/Update and Merge Menus

    I tried that but I cannot create a dForce modifier for G3M, I load the base G3M figure, select the upper belly of the G3M and then select "create, New dForce Modifier Weight Node", a weight node is created but when I select the Node Weigjt Mode Brush and select the "dForce Modifier Weight Node", I cannot create a new map.

    Post edited by cheznous2029_28ab1adedc on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Did you first add a dForce modifier? I assume you have but if not, do that first (the weight node will add without the modifier but you can't add a map.)

    To add the weight node, select the entire figure (e.g., Genesis 8 Male) not just the upper belly. With just the abdomen selected, the weight node will appear but you can't add a map.

    Hope this gets you on your way.

  • RGcincy said:

    Did you first add a dForce modifier? I assume you have but if not, do that first (the weight node will add without the modifier but you can't add a map.)

    To add the weight node, select the entire figure (e.g., Genesis 8 Male) not just the upper belly. With just the abdomen selected, the weight node will appear but you can't add a map.

    Hope this gets you on your way.

    Boy I'm really dense!  I didn't add a dForce modifier!!!

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Boy I'm really dense!  I didn't add a dForce modifier!!!

    I've done that a time or two when I've had multiple meshes to deform. Or turn one off in the parameters pane and forget I did that, then be puzzled why it wasn't working as I expected.

  • Hi folks,

    I'm very interested by creating clothing for my characters, and I'll need to do a fur hide cloak. Wich looks like real fur.
    But fibermesh looks like too ressource-heavy, and I'm looking for the dForce hair shader (used on furry creatures, like cat/fox girl, and other various animals and monsters around the store).

    Now, the creation :
    I mostly know the procedure with dforce and/or Marvelous Designer to wrap and adjust the hide around shoulders, but the fur part bothers me : it looks like I'll have to create the fur within DS (strand-based hair) and stick it to my hide, instead of trying to simulate a fibermesh fur created with ZBrush (wich I imagine being a living nightmare in Marvelous Designer, not to mention morphs to DS...).

    Since I didnt see in this topic any information about dForce fur creation (looks like a tool only for PAs) I'll not bother with it in the first iteration, but is someone able to tell me if my process looks correct :
    - Create the base flat hide in MD, simulate and adjust (JCM and all)
    - Import base mesh into DS, import morphs & JCM, adjust weight maps
    - Create strand-based hair in DS, fit it on the hiden apply shaders to looks like fur.
    Will it works (at first glance) ?

    Thanks

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    bbaluchon said:

    Will it works (at first glance) ?

    I only did a little work with the strand-based hair. The version available to the common users like me respond poorly to any dForce attempt so I didn't pursue it. But I would think you should be able to add the fur within DS although I think it has to go on a geometric surface. 

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    I updated Part 3 of the PDF's that document the postings in this thread. That now makes 3 PDF's containing a total of 277 pages of instructions covering sections 1-75. Will I make it to a 100? We'll see. I never thought I'd do this much when I started way back when. Hope they are proving helpful. 

    Download links for all 3 are at the top of the first post of this thread HERE

  • frankrblowfrankrblow Posts: 2,052
    RGcincy said:

    ... Hope they are proving helpful. 

    Absolutely! Great job on these. yes

  • Thank you very much for updating the pdf. I know it's a lot of work.

  • AnimAnim Posts: 241

    Many thanks for creating this.

    Love how the community is filling in the lack of documentation from DAZ.

  • Jack238Jack238 Posts: 117

    RGcincy:

    Let me just add my thanks too. 

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Thanks for the comments!

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited January 2020

     

    80. Adding Wrinkles to Couch Cushions. As with clothing, upholstered furniture in Daz Studio can look too pristine with taut cushions and seat backs. You can apply some of the techniques to make puffy clothing to give furniture a more lived-in appearance.

    a. Pick a furniture item. The cushions need to have enough polygons to move around. If the cushion top has only one to a few large polygons, there’s not much you can do.

    b. In this tutorial I’ll be working with two products. In both, the couch is a single object. The couch from Apartment Living Room has only two surfaces, so you’ll need to use a weight node to be able to constrain dForce to the intended area. The other couch from Couch Potato Props has multiple surfaces so the cushions can be selected separate from the other parts. For this product the weight node is optional.

    c. Load the Apartment Living Room couch. Add a dForce dynamic modifier. Add a dForce modifier Weight Node.

    d. Select the weight node in the Scene pane, then select the Node Weight Map Brush in the Tool Settings pane. Click on the Add Map button and add an Influence Strength map. All of the couch will turn red.

    e. Right click in the viewport and choose Weight Editing/Fill Selected and choose 0%. This sets all surfaces to a zero dynamic strength.

    f. Use the Geometry Selection mode (first icon in the group of tools at the upper right of the pane). Click once on a polygon in the middle of a cushion. Hold down the ctrl key while clicking on each of the other 5 cushions.

    g. Next hold down the ctrl key and hit the + key (on the keypad) to expand the selection. Keep doing this until the upper surface of the cushion is selected.

    Partially selected:

    Fully selected:

    h. Right click in the viewport and choose Weight Editing/Fill Selected and choose 100%. This means these portions of the surface will be affected by dForce.

    i. Repeat steps f – h on the front part of the three lower cushions.

    j. Use the Paint Brush mode to add some influence to the front lip of the lower cushions. This will let them deform but at a lesser amount than the main part of the cushions. The final weight map should look similar to this one.

    k. There are two ways to deform the cushions: contraction-expansion ratio and scaling. For both, we want dForce Gravity and Air Resistance to be zero (Simulation Settings pane). I also use an animated simulation so I can choose the best frame.

    l. This render shows the couch as loaded. Note the taut, smooth fabric.

    m. This shows the effect if one uses the default dForce surface parameters. Note a little bit of wrinkling.

    n. These examples use Contraction-Expansion Ratio. The expansion increases the size of the fabric, and since it is constrained by the shape and surrounding geometry, it causes more wrinkling. How much to use will vary by object; the smaller it is in size, the larger a C-E value you should choose.

    101% C-E

    102% C-E

    o. The second way to stretch is by scaling the object. Go to frame 10 on the timeline and add a key frame for the couch so it retains scale 100%. Go to frame 0 and set Scale to greater than 100%. The larger the scale, the more wrinkling you’ll create when the couch shrinks back down. As for C-E ratio, the smaller in size an object is, the greater a scale you should start with.

    100.2% Scale

    100.5% Scale

     

    Go to the next post for part 2

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    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited January 2020

     

    Part Two - 80. Adding Wrinkles to Couch Cushions.   (Find Part 1 here)

    p. The couch from Couch Potato Props comes with some built in wrinkling but more can be added by following the same methods as above.

    As it loads:

    q. Contraction-Expansion Ratio with no weight map:

    101% C-E

    102% C-E

    r. Add a weight map similar to this one. The process is similar to what was done in steps f – j.

    102% C-E with weight map

    s. Scale with and without weight map:

    101% Scale

    101% Scale with weight map:

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    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049

    That really gives it a lived in look.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    barbult said:

    That really gives it a lived in look.

    Thanks, that's what I'm going for with clothing and other fabric objects. So much 3D looks too perfect.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited January 2020

     

    81. Plowed Field. A number of farm products I have come with flat fields. Farm fields can be relatively flat but most have some degree of 3 dimensionality either from plowing, tilling, or the actions of small streams. For this tutorial, I’m using a field and prop that comes with On the Farm to show you how to convert a flat plane into a plowed field.

    a. Create a primitive Y-positive plane that is size 1300 cm with 100 divisions. Label it Plowed Field.

    b. Add a dForce dynamic modifier to this plane.

    c. Set Stretch Stiffness and Bend Stiffness to 0.01

    d. Create a second primitive Y-positive plane that is size 1500 cm with 100 divisions. Label it ground.

    e. Create a primitive X-positive cylinder that is 900 cm long, 25 cm in diameter, with 100 divisions and 16 sides.

    f. (Optional if you own Mesh Grabber) Select Mesh Grabber in tool settings. Set Gizmo Orientation to Nodes axes, set Gain to 30%, set Falloff Radius to 1000, and Falloff Type to Random. Click on a spot on top of the cylinder, halfway down its length, and move the gizmo up just enough to add some roughness along the cylinder.  

    g. Open the UltraScatterPro script in the Script IDE. Select the cylinder in the Scene pane. Select matrix scatter and set Z-rows to 31 and Z-spacing to 40. Execute the script.

    h. Check that your timeline pointer is on frame 0.

    i. Open the script Instances to Object. Select the cylinder instances in the Scene pane. Execute the script. In the script dialog, check the box AND click on the instances name. Then click on execute (save before doing this step as I sometimes find this script will crash Daz Studio).

    j. For deeper furrows, set Y-scale to 200% for the deinstanced group.

    k. With the timeline at frame 0, position the plane Plowed Field just above the deinstanced cylinders. Position the plane labeled Ground so it intersects the middle of the cylinders.

    l. Run an animated dForce simulation.

    m. For On the Farm, scale the dForce ground to 200% so the mesh matches the size of the big ground (I made the plane undersize in step 1 so that in step 5 the entire cylinder can be roughened with Mesh Grabber). Copy the big ground texture to the Plowed Field plane.

    n. Add a corn plant. Use a matrix scatter of 54-1-25 xyz rows with spacing of 35-20-100. Set scaling from 100% to 130%. Set 3D Noise to Simplex map with zoom at 19%. Set Y-rotation to 180. Execute the script and position the resulting instances so the corn stalks emerge from the top of the furrows.

    o. You’ll note that the edge of the plowed field appears as a straight line. You can use postwork tools like clone, smear, and/or water to soften the edge.

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    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • Hello,

    Thank you for all the tutorials, I'm new to dForce and this is really helpful !

    I am building a night scene and I'd like to create a realistic simulation of the bed. I opened a topic there : https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/384141/bed-scene-physics-dforce

    I did the mattress, the fitted sheet and the pillow under my sleeping genesis with the techniques above, using a negative gravity.

    Now, I'd like to add a duvet on the sleeping character. I could freeze the simulation, go back to a normal gravity and then simulate it, but the result is very flat ; it's more a sheet than a duvet. 

    With negative gravity, the duvet is fluffy but it goes up...

    How can I use the negative gravity to pump the duvet up and make it falls on the bed to wrap the character like the sheet do in the normal gravity ? 

    Thank you for your help

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2020

    @faonkenstein

    You may be able to freeze the first simulation, invert everything 180 degrees so the mattress, sheet, figure, and pillow are above the duvet, then simulate under negative gravity. Flip everything around again after.

    Is the duvet made of two pieces (e.g., an upper surface and a lower surface)? If so, you might use a weight map and give the upper surface a lower influence weight (like 0.9 or 0.95).

    A low density like 2 or 5 might help as well (that makes for a stiffer fabric so it doesn't flow like silk).

    If none of that works, post an image of the duvet so I can see what it looks like.

     

    Post edited by RGcincy on
  •  

    RGcincy said:

    @faonkenstein

    You may be able to freeze the first simulation, invert everything 180 degrees so the mattress, sheet, figure, and pillow are above the duvet, then simulate under negative gravity. Flip everything around again after.

    Is the duvet made of two pieces (e.g., an upper surface and a lower surface)? If so, you might use a weight map and give the upper surface a lower influence weight (like 0.9 or 0.95).

    A low density like 2 or 5 might help as well (that makes for a stiffer fabric so it doesn't flow like silk).

    If none of that works, post an image of the duvet so I can see what it looks like.

     


    Thank you for your quick reply !

    I tried this technique and it can work by turning the scene upside down !

    But the result is a bit frozen (when you sleep, you twist the duvet in all directions). The falling sheet with normal gravity  surrounds the contours of the character's body better, and maybe it gives a more realistic feeling. Maybe I should do both with the duvet falling out of the bed.

    Besides, what bothers me is that it requires a large number of operations (bake the first simulation, freeze it, turn the scene upside down, change the parameters of the simulation, bake the second simulation, etc). Indeed, I would like to use a single simulation to have the bed and all its related components as an asset ready to use to generate images with different characters in different poses. This is why I spend a lot of time configuring the simulation once and for all.

    Would you have an idea to simulate the duvet at the same time as the rest of the bed, without turning the scene upside down or changing the gravity? If it's not possible, I should find a way to script it, but I don't know if Daz3d can do that (in After effects, all parameters can be keyframed in the timeline during the simulation).
     

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  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2020

     

    Your image looks good. Glad the upside down idea worked.

     

    But the result is a bit frozen (when you sleep, you twist the duvet in all directions). The falling sheet with normal gravity  surrounds the contours of the character's body better, and maybe it gives a more realistic feeling. Maybe I should do both with the duvet falling out of the bed.

    Several suggestions:

    1. You could animate the figure as the duvet is draping. That could include having it bend up at the waist so the duvet slides down (or up if reversed and using negative gravity) and moving the limbs. It would be trial and error to see what works best.
    2. You could use what I call "helper objects" to move the duvet. Create primitive sphere(s) and place them so their mesh intersects the duvet mesh at the start. Animate the spheres and not the duvet. The spheres will move the duvet around. This would require trial and error too.
    3. Animate the duvet. Start with it rotated and tilted (say 30 degrees) at frame 0 and move it back to 0 at frame 5. The movement will cause momentum effects and distort the draping. More trial and error.

     

    Would you have an idea to simulate the duvet at the same time as the rest of the bed, without turning the scene upside down or changing the gravity? If it's not possible, I should find a way to script it, but I don't know if Daz3d can do that (in After effects, all parameters can be keyframed in the timeline during the simulation).

    Not right off. Gravity is a universal parameter, so all simulations work off the one setting unless you do them stepwise with freezing of completed ones. The dForce parameters are also not modifiable on the timeline, so you can't change them midway.

    One thing you might try is to use positive gravity but at a lower value (0.2-0.5). Add static dForce modifiers to mattress and figure. Set different collision layer numbers to the different items, and set the duvet's collision offset to a high number (say 10). Also set duvet's density to 2 to stiffen it so it doesn't flow like silk. Not sure if this would work but worth a try.

    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • Thank you @RGcincy, I will try those suggestions to increase the realism of the scene. I will also try to sculpt a wrinkled texture on the Duvet as I did on the fitted sheet to let more creases appear during the simulation.

    About the simultaneous simulation, I think I will keep two different simulations but launching it with a script i'm trying to code right here to speed up the process : https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/385396/simulation-script#latest

     

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited March 2020

     

    82. dForce Companion. ManFriday recently published a new product called dForce Companion. Quoting from his product description:  “This new plugin for Daz Studio simplifies your work with dForce (hair and cloth). It provides a new "dForce" pane in your Daz Studio user interface. This has two main features: (1) the pane shows you all the figures from your Scene tab that has a dForce modifier and (2) for each figure, you can simulate only that figure (and freeze the simulation for others), as well as turn on/off the Visible in the simulation flag and the smoothing modifier, if present. You can quickly reset the simulation data for each figure. This greatly speeds up setting up dForce simulations, especially if you have multiple cloths or hair items in the scene that you want to simulate separately. No more digging in the scene tree to see which items are dForced and no more simulating the wrong item accidentally.”

    a. To show how this product works, I selected one of my early tutorials that shows a stack up of five clothing items (Creating a Clothes Pile). The prime difficulty in that tutorial is you have to simulate different items separately in the right sequence. That means you have to go back and forth between the Scene and Parameters panes to select items and turn on/off Visible to Simulation. To remind me of the sequence, I organized the scene pane so I knew which items to do when. With dForce Companion, the pane will have a list of all the dForce items and you can simply click on checkboxes to include or exclude items.

    b. This image shows what we are looking to accomplish: a pair of pants laid over the seat of a chair, a pair of socks tucked into boots on the floor, a shirt draped over the pants and one of the boots, a leotard over the shirt and a second shirt over the chair’s back.

    c. Set up the scene with the clothing items stacked up as shown.

    d. To use the product, you need to open a dForce Companion pane. To do this, go to the main menu and choose Window/Panes (Tabs) and select dForce.

    e. The dForce pane shows a list of dForce items that were automatically detected.

    f. Step 1 is to select the pants by clicking in the Sim column. We also need it visible to simulation so be sure there’s a checkmark in the Vis column as well. Uncheck Vis for all the other dForce items. We don’t want the pants to catch on the boots, so click on the Show All box. Uncheck Vis for the Boots. Click on the Simulate Checked button to get the result shown (pants only draped).

     

    g. Step 2 is to uncheck pants in the Sim column, check socks in the Sim column as well as the in Vis column, and check Vis for the boots as we now want the socks to interact with them. Click on Simulate Checked. The result is the socks are tucked into the boots.

     

    h. Step 3 is to uncheck the socks in the Sim column and check the gym shirt Sim and Vis. We want the pants, boots, and socks to be Vis as we want the shirt to lay on top of them (and not fall through them). The results is the shirt draped over the pants and one edge caught on the boots.

     

    i. Step 4 is to uncheck the gym shirt Sim leaving Vis checked. Then check Leotard and Tshirt Sim and Vis (we can do them together as they don’t lay on top of each other). Normally when you click on one item, dForce Companion deselects all others; you can override that by holding down the Ctrl key as you select other items. Run the simulation which completes the sequence to give the final result.

     

    j. The dForce companion pane made it much easier to simulate this multiple-part setup and avoided a lot of back and forth to change parameters. If you have a number of dForce items in a scene and need to simulate them in order, this is a very helpful product to have.

     

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    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • OminousAutumnOminousAutumn Posts: 388
    edited April 2020

    Hi, not sure if this is the best forum but I am trying to simulate a dress on a woman who is sitting. Pretty basic stuff. The dForce is working on the dress but not really following the law of gravity properly. Any tips?! Thanks!!!

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    Post edited by OminousAutumn on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    I tried a couple of dresses, one a dforce product and one an older product that I added dforce to. Both draped as I would expect. The thoughts that come to mind on your image:

    1. Was the duration long enough for the lower part of the dress to fully relax?

    2. Is part of the dress in contact with another part and so is being held together? That could happen if the dress touched or penetrated part of itself when the figure's legs were posed. If you didn't already, simulate from a memorized pose. If you already were doing that, try setting self collide to off.

  • RGcincy said:

    I tried a couple of dresses, one a dforce product and one an older product that I added dforce to. Both draped as I would expect. The thoughts that come to mind on your image:

    1. Was the duration long enough for the lower part of the dress to fully relax?

    2. Is part of the dress in contact with another part and so is being held together? That could happen if the dress touched or penetrated part of itself when the figure's legs were posed. If you didn't already, simulate from a memorized pose. If you already were doing that, try setting self collide to off.

    Does diration refer to Initialization time? Or Stabilization time? If the dress touching itself is an issue, how do you get the dress to conform to the shape of a chair underneath? In over my head here XD

    Thanks for the help!

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  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Duration is stabilization time if using a current frame simulation otherwise it's the length of your timeline (default is 30 frames). 

    Your image shows the dress inside the cushions. You may be able to start from a memorized pose (usually that will be the default A or T-pose).to keep it outside but I suspect the figure would end up standing inside the couch.To avoid that, do a timeline simulation. Start at frame 0 with the figure standing in front of the couch. Be sure the dress is entirely in front of the couch. At frame 15 have the figure sitting in the desired final pose. When a figure moves in dForce there are momentum effects that can affect the way the clothing drapes. Then you will have 15 frames for the dress to settle.

    Alternatively, you can animate the couch. Move the couch back, put the figure in the final pose, use start from a memorized pose which will cause the figure to stand, and animate the couch so it moves into place before the figure sits downs. 

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