Tips and Tricks of DAZ Studio Optitex Dynamic Clothes

2

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  • DoctorJellybeanDoctorJellybean Posts: 7,845
    edited December 1969

    We need tutorials on the wind and collision (and other advanced) options :)

  • bighbigh Posts: 8,147
    edited December 1969

    We need tutorials on the wind and collision (and other advanced) options :)

    way to learn is to play with them .

  • JPayneJPayne Posts: 79
    edited December 1969

    I use this plug-in quite often for my renders and it's a breeze to set up and use. My only complaint is the limited amount of support for this plug-in. Seems like there should be an additional plug-in for converting poser dynamic clothing to something the Optitex plug-in can work with. I am aware of where this plug-in comes from but surely there must be a way to convert either poser dynamic clothing or even a Daz specific rigged item? We need more variety of items.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    edited December 1969

    jpay2 said:
    I use this plug-in quite often for my renders and it's a breeze to set up and use. My only complaint is the limited amount of support for this plug-in. Seems like there should be an additional plug-in for converting poser dynamic clothing to something the Optitex plug-in can work with. I am aware of where this plug-in comes from but surely there must be a way to convert either poser dynamic clothing or even a Daz specific rigged item? We need more variety of items.

    agree

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437
    edited December 1969

    Any tips for getting jeans or pants to fit over shoes or boots? Such a frustrating endeavor

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    edited December 1969

    Any tips for getting jeans or pants to fit over shoes or boots? Such a frustrating endeavor

    Might not be simple, or even possible — if you have the full Dynamic Control plugin, it allows you to selectively shrink different material parts of the dynamic cloth, but if you try to shrink with a negative value, the drape quickly goes berserk and crashes.

    One thing that might work for shoes is, before trying to drape, shrink the trouser legs vertically so they just clear the top of the shoes. Add the shoes to the collide list for the trousers. When you start the drape, the trouser legs immediately unshrink, and should push down over the top of the shoes. A similar method might work for boots that don't go too far up the leg — ankle boots might work, anything longer probably won't. Laces with big loops, or bulky straps, might also be a problem; I frequently see dynamic cloth crinkle if I try to drape it over small, fine detail.

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,565
    edited December 1969

    You could also shrink the footwear so that it's inside the leg at the start and restore it to normal size over the course of an animated drape.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    edited December 1969

    Collision Tolerance and Internal Pressure can help- in the preferences tab of dynamic clothing; i've had it work, and also had to do two renders with one of the footwear invisible. Gimp Photoshop used to blend/correct.

    I've noticed as I practice with dynamics I find I have more success with drapes than I did initially. I also find that the work involved in draping is less than trying to get custom morphs to work on static clothes.

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,470
    zigraphix said:

    Try posting an image that shows your problem with the polo shirt collar-- I'm not familiar with that one.

    Another tip: because the panel pieces are laid out as if to cut fabric, fabric material shaders work very well with these clothing items. Mariah's Fabricator sets, for example, can give any of these a whole new look.

    The other trick I find helpful is to pin parts of a garment in place. Simon showed how to increase friction on the suspenders in the example above to keep them from slipping off the shoulders. If that's not enough, you can parent small primitives to the shoulders of the figure so they intersect the cloth you want to hold still, and then hide the primitives. Include the primitives in the collision list for the dynamic cloth. This keeps that part of the cloth from moving around.

    If you use small primitives to Pin the shoulders, wouldn't they end up pushing through during the draping, eventually?   ...or is there a way to "stick to" something?  For example, if you made a swing, is there a way to stick the tops of the rope to a branch, or would you have to make loops?

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    Since this resurfaced, I'll point out that one cool way to use dynamic clothing is to provide a guide for conforming clothing. So, for example, if you have a dynamic tshirt on a woman, and then set a conforming shirt that collides with the dynamic tshirt, the conforming outfit will cover it.

     

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714

    I like this. :)

    Since this resurfaced, I'll point out that one cool way to use dynamic clothing is to provide a guide for conforming clothing. So, for example, if you have a dynamic tshirt on a woman, and then set a conforming shirt that collides with the dynamic tshirt, the conforming outfit will cover it.

     

     

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,470
    3dOutlaw said:
    zigraphix said:

    Try posting an image that shows your problem with the polo shirt collar-- I'm not familiar with that one.

    Another tip: because the panel pieces are laid out as if to cut fabric, fabric material shaders work very well with these clothing items. Mariah's Fabricator sets, for example, can give any of these a whole new look.

    The other trick I find helpful is to pin parts of a garment in place. Simon showed how to increase friction on the suspenders in the example above to keep them from slipping off the shoulders. If that's not enough, you can parent small primitives to the shoulders of the figure so they intersect the cloth you want to hold still, and then hide the primitives. Include the primitives in the collision list for the dynamic cloth. This keeps that part of the cloth from moving around.

    If you use small primitives to Pin the shoulders, wouldn't they end up pushing through during the draping, eventually?   ...or is there a way to "stick to" something?  For example, if you made a swing, is there a way to stick the tops of the rope to a branch, or would you have to make loops?

    Anyone?  Bueller?  :)

    Was wanting to know if there is a way to Pin parts of a outfit other than increasing friction?  The way above seems to "push" the item out of the object, since that object is set to collision.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    edited August 2015

     

    3dOutlaw said:
    3dOutlaw said:
    zigraphix said:

    Try posting an image that shows your problem with the polo shirt collar-- I'm not familiar with that one.

    Another tip: because the panel pieces are laid out as if to cut fabric, fabric material shaders work very well with these clothing items. Mariah's Fabricator sets, for example, can give any of these a whole new look.

    The other trick I find helpful is to pin parts of a garment in place. Simon showed how to increase friction on the suspenders in the example above to keep them from slipping off the shoulders. If that's not enough, you can parent small primitives to the shoulders of the figure so they intersect the cloth you want to hold still, and then hide the primitives. Include the primitives in the collision list for the dynamic cloth. This keeps that part of the cloth from moving around.

    If you use small primitives to Pin the shoulders, wouldn't they end up pushing through during the draping, eventually?   ...or is there a way to "stick to" something?  For example, if you made a swing, is there a way to stick the tops of the rope to a branch, or would you have to make loops?

    Anyone?  Bueller?  :)

    Was wanting to know if there is a way to Pin parts of a outfit other than increasing friction?  The way above seems to "push" the item out of the object, since that object is set to collision.

    When it matters because too much friction is causing it to drape poorly, I use both; reduce the friction once it is 'on the figure correctly ish'; the trick can be finding the best areas to pin, although as I don't tend to animate, I can put pins out of the way. Make them small at spots that should naturally hold the garment, and make em invisible.

    I've also had a pin move very slowly to prevent too much gather, that has helped too.

    Post edited by nicstt on
  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    nicstt said:
    Make them small at spots that should naturally hold the garment, and make em invisible.

    But not too small. One thing that can catch you out here is that a lot depends on the mesh density of the dynamic cloth. If this is too much different from the mesh density of the object underneath, then bits of the denser-mesh object can poke through the gaps in the coarser-mesh cloth. Remember this isn't actual solid cloth, you're colliding 3D vertices against 3D vertices with nothing in between them. The same goes for pins, they work more efficiently if they're enough bigger than the cloth mesh to capture several vertices inside them. If you make a pin small enough to fall completely between vertices on the cloth, it won't work at all. And I have seen some dynamic cloth with surprisingly low mesh density.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714

     

    nicstt said:
    Make them small at spots that should naturally hold the garment, and make em invisible.

    But not too small. One thing that can catch you out here is that a lot depends on the mesh density of the dynamic cloth. If this is too much different from the mesh density of the object underneath, then bits of the denser-mesh object can poke through the gaps in the coarser-mesh cloth. Remember this isn't actual solid cloth, you're colliding 3D vertices against 3D vertices with nothing in between them. The same goes for pins, they work more efficiently if they're enough bigger than the cloth mesh to capture several vertices inside them. If you make a pin small enough to fall completely between vertices on the cloth, it won't work at all. And I have seen some dynamic cloth with surprisingly low mesh density.

    Very true; and a pain it can be.

  • SimonWMSimonWM Posts: 924
    edited September 2015
    nicstt said:

    Can we have some Dynamic clothes for Victoria 7 please. :)

    Skirts, underwear mostly as there is other stuff out there.

    Yes this is being planned. Sorry I haven't been able to be as active in this thread as I would have liked.

    Some recent videos:
    Keeping Pieces of a Dynamic Cloth Item on Top
    Optitex Basic Plugin Medium Dress to Small/XSmall

    Martin's DAZ Optitex Website Tutorials

    http://www.optitex-dynamiccloth.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

     

    And my latest:

    Some tips for Iray rendering:

    When rendering in Iray its advisable:
    1-To freeze the simulation for more stability.
    2-We recommend you add a smoothing modifier since it makes dynamic clothes in Iray look better. (Scene Tab/Edit/Geometry/Apply smoothing modifier) Smoothing Type works best as Generic. Iterations can be left at 2. Choose your model as Collision item.
    3-A Smoothing modifier is almost enough to make the cloth look good but you can also try to add converting the resulting mesh to SubDivision using Edit/Geometry/Convert To SubD.  Do not use Bilinear subdivision as it will give you jagged clothing folds, Catmull Clark Legacy seems to work best in Iray.
    4-Increase Texture Resolution in the Advanced Tab of the Render Settings Panel to 2048 Medium Threshold and 4096 High Threshold.

     

    Post edited by SimonWM on
  • mtl1mtl1 Posts: 1,500

    So this may be a good place to ask if there are any tricks to fitting V4 dynamic cloth to G2F... I understand that it's impossible to morph or auto-fit V4 clothing, but from what I understand -- and assuming V6 G2F is larger than V4 -- it's entirely possible to *shrink* G2F's dimensions down (or to use V4 shapes) such that she fits underneath V4 dynamic cloth items, right? From there, it seems feasible to adjust G2F to whatever size is desired -- within limits of the dynamic cloth, of course.

    Here's the tricky part that I can't get past: if dynamic cloth isn't rigged and I can't use auto-fit, how can I get sleeves and such to 'fit' or follow G2F correctly? Manually move the pieces until it fits? Or is there a better way?

  • SimonWMSimonWM Posts: 924
    mtl1 said:

     

    Here's the tricky part that I can't get past: if dynamic cloth isn't rigged and I can't use auto-fit, how can I get sleeves and such to 'fit' or follow G2F correctly? Manually move the pieces until it fits? Or is there a better way?

    Auto Fit only works for conforming.  When you run the dynamics simulation the sleeves will find its way around G2F if you started your animation from a T-Pose with most of the figure inside the clothing, provided you are running an animated drape. 

  • Pose the figure to fit inside the clothing in frame 0 on the Timeline pane, then drag the marker to frame 30 and apply the pose you want. In the Dynamic Clothing pane set collision and so on as usual, but set the Drape type to Animated. Drag the Timeline slider back to frame 0 and start the drape.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    I've found I don't need animated that often for the majority of items that have rigging at all -- copy the figure, paste the pose, move some of the limbs appropriately.

    The only time I've really found a need for animation is when the figure's morphs are really weird, and even then I'm probably better off scaling the figure so things fall off big shoulders/boobs/whatever appropriately.

     

  • mtl1mtl1 Posts: 1,500

    Hmm, okay. I just experimented with this -- admittedly, I'm new to timeline -- and I indeed get the best results using Richard's suggestion of moving to frame 30 and applying the pose. If I do it right away at frame zero, the cloth simulation seems to mess up the sleeve holes for this particular V4 dress. Admittedly, the dress was still in a "T" default pose while G2F was already posed...

    I want to experiment a bit further, but I'm at a loss as to how to increase the length of the timeline. I've tried typing in various numbers for the number of frames, but it doesn't allow me to change it beyond the equivalent of 1 second's worth of animation (that is, 30 frames if I have 30FPS and 60 frames if I have 60FPS).

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    mtl1 said:

    Hmm, okay. I just experimented with this -- admittedly, I'm new to timeline -- and I indeed get the best results using Richard's suggestion of moving to frame 30 and applying the pose. If I do it right away at frame zero, the cloth simulation seems to mess up the sleeve holes for this particular V4 dress. Admittedly, the dress was still in a "T" default pose while G2F was already posed...

    I want to experiment a bit further, but I'm at a loss as to how to increase the length of the timeline. I've tried typing in various numbers for the number of frames, but it doesn't allow me to change it beyond the equivalent of 1 second's worth of animation (that is, 30 frames if I have 30FPS and 60 frames if I have 60FPS).

    Bottom of the screen; total = 31; range = 0 to 30. Change the total.

  • mtl1mtl1 Posts: 1,500
    edited September 2015
    nicstt said:
    mtl1 said:

    Hmm, okay. I just experimented with this -- admittedly, I'm new to timeline -- and I indeed get the best results using Richard's suggestion of moving to frame 30 and applying the pose. If I do it right away at frame zero, the cloth simulation seems to mess up the sleeve holes for this particular V4 dress. Admittedly, the dress was still in a "T" default pose while G2F was already posed...

    I want to experiment a bit further, but I'm at a loss as to how to increase the length of the timeline. I've tried typing in various numbers for the number of frames, but it doesn't allow me to change it beyond the equivalent of 1 second's worth of animation (that is, 30 frames if I have 30FPS and 60 frames if I have 60FPS).

    Bottom of the screen; total = 31; range = 0 to 30. Change the total.

    I did that. It snaps back to 30 when I enter a number :( edit: I'll try again when I get back home. Maybe I was changing the wrong field or something...

    Post edited by mtl1 on
  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714

    Do you have the full version?

  • mtl1 said:
    nicstt said:
    mtl1 said:

    Hmm, okay. I just experimented with this -- admittedly, I'm new to timeline -- and I indeed get the best results using Richard's suggestion of moving to frame 30 and applying the pose. If I do it right away at frame zero, the cloth simulation seems to mess up the sleeve holes for this particular V4 dress. Admittedly, the dress was still in a "T" default pose while G2F was already posed...

    I want to experiment a bit further, but I'm at a loss as to how to increase the length of the timeline. I've tried typing in various numbers for the number of frames, but it doesn't allow me to change it beyond the equivalent of 1 second's worth of animation (that is, 30 frames if I have 30FPS and 60 frames if I have 60FPS).

    Bottom of the screen; total = 31; range = 0 to 30. Change the total.

    I did that. It snaps back to 30 when I enter a number :( edit: I'll try again when I get back home. Maybe I was changing the wrong field or something...

    It's the Total box you are editing, and you are hitting return after entering the new number (I'm not sure that's needed, but it may be worth trying).

  • When using the timeline and animated drapes, is it possible to copy a later frame to earlier so I can iterate on the dynamic cloth draping or do I need some animation addon like http://www.daz3d.com/keymate ?

  • mtl1mtl1 Posts: 1,500

    I feel so embarassed... I was entering the number into the wrong box :$

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    mtl1 said:

    I feel so embarassed... I was entering the number into the wrong box :$

    Been there done that, and I can prove it.

    Incidentally, it's DA shaders on a freebie from opitex; the Luke Polo shirt (which isn't technically a T-Shirt) but... No idea on the chair, I just did a search on chair in my runtime. :)

    got-the-tshirt.jpg
    1273 x 1800 - 422K
  • Gr00vusGr00vus Posts: 366

    Lots of optitex stuff on sale in the V4/M4 promo sale right now at 80% off.

  • Gr00vus said:

    Lots of optitex stuff on sale in the V4/M4 promo sale right now at 80% off.

    And don't forget, it's not just for the Generation 4 figures — with a bit of work, you can get many of these items to drape well enough on pretty much any humanoid figure.

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