Tips and Tricks of DAZ Studio Optitex Dynamic Clothes

13»

Comments

  • Gr00vusGr00vus Posts: 366
    edited November 2015

    That's my big plan after picking up a bunch of it during this sale. I had mixed results applying it to V7 last night (some poke through and jagged crinkling), but I have no idea what I'm doing - yet - as this is my initial foray into the DAZ Studio dynamic cloth implementation. Going back through this thread should help I hope, particularly the resources linked in the various posts. That said - anyone got quick tips/pointers for successfully applying these to G3 figures? 

    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.

     

    Post edited by Gr00vus on
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited November 2015
    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.

    Yep...here's a G2F wearing the M4 Hoodie and V4's bell bottoms (from the Optitex freebie pages)...

    optitex.png
    800 x 1024 - 236K
    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    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.

    I use em on G3 np

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    edited November 2015

    Generally animate drape to fit them from a T or A.

    I prefer to do that mostly anyway.

    I have em all, bar 4 items i think it is; the only one left in my wishlist is, Dress Collection Two for V4 and it doesn't get the discount. But no hurry.

    Post edited by nicstt on
  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    The only times I've really felt the need to use animation is with weird morphs. Assuming the outfit is rigged (which most are), it's (IMO) easier to just go into the rig and adjust the limbs/body to be in roughly the right place and drape from there.

    And given I can drape on robots like the Dystopian Worker Drones, G3 shouldn't be much of a problem. ;)

     

  • SethMSethM Posts: 65

    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 ?

    I was wondering this as well. It's extremely frustrating. Anyone know an answer?

    Thanks.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    Robot in a dress!

    Big tip that's probably been made a bunch of times -- after freezing simulation, you should generally go into Edit > Geometry > Convert to Subd. If the clothing looks a bit jagged or there's minor pokethrough, Edit > Geometry > Add Smoothing Modifier, and set collision of the outfit to the underlying figure. Use as little smoothing as possible.

     

    Robot in a dress.jpg
    1389 x 2000 - 1M
  • Gr00vusGr00vus Posts: 366

    I haven't had a chance to read all the resources linked yet, so forgive me if this is something that's covered there - what does "freeze the simulation" mean?

    Thanks.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878
    edited November 2015

    In the Dynamic Clothing window, if you click on the little square in the upper right, 'freeze the simulation' is one of the options. It basically converts the dynamic clothing to a static object that you can then manipulate in various ways (like smoothing, deformers if for some reason you feel so inclined, etc).

    I THINK you can render without it, but I'm not sure the drape is preserved if you save the file.

     

    Oh, another tip I might be repeating -- you can drape multiple times and change collision (or wind, if you have full version) each time. So, for example, you might first focus on getting a dress draped correctly. And then you want wind to blow it back.

    Post edited by Oso3D on
  • Gr00vusGr00vus Posts: 366

    if you have full version) 

    What's the full version?

    Also, thanks for replying. You're a wiz with the dynamic clothing so I was hoping I could lean on your expertise as I bungle my way through working with it.

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 10,932
    Gr00vus said:

    if you have full version) 

    What's the full version?

    Dynamic Control plugin, which is sold in the store. The plugin included in DS is a basic version, it has less options.

  • Gr00vusGr00vus Posts: 366

    And here I thought I could take a breather from buying stuff. Is this a must have for using dynamic cloth? Seems like I'm probably not ready for this thing yet. Hopefully it'll go on sale some day. 

    Leana said:
    Gr00vus said:

     

    if you have full version) 

    What's the full version?

    Dynamic Control plugin, which is sold in the store. The plugin included in DS is a basic version, it has less options.

     

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 10,932
    edited November 2015
    Gr00vus said:

    And here I thought I could take a breather from buying stuff. Is this a must have for using dynamic cloth? Seems like I'm probably not ready for this thing yet. Hopefully it'll go on sale some day. 

    The control plugin is quite useful as it gives you more options to tweak your clothes, but they're definitely useable without it.

    IMO you should start with the basic plugin to see if you like the results, and wait for a sale on DAZ Originals if you decide you'd like to have the extra options.

    Post edited by Leana on
  • ChuckMChuckM Posts: 129

    This thread has been helpful in taking the mystery of Dynamic Clothing out of Studio. 

    Thanks!

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    I found it enormously hard to work with until I realized that most of the clothing had posing rigs. Most of the clothing has a little triangle, click, and you see an invisible rigging thing underneath with the usual body parts you can pose as normal.

    The only time I've really needed to animate drape is when body proportions are very odd. Like a woman with huge breasts, it might be impossible to pose the clothing big enough so it 'knows' to drape around the breasts rather than ignoring it.

    That said, in most of THOSE cases, I've found it still easier to scale the figure down until it fits, drape, freeze, parent clothing to the figure, and then scale back up. Generally, it's better to have more cloth to drape than stretch the heck out of it.

     

  • Gr00vusGr00vus Posts: 366

    When you say pose the clothing big enough, do you mean you're adjusting the scale of the clothing, or adjusting the scale of parts of the clothing so the figure you're draping to is completely inside the clothing? I assume you're also adjusting the other transformation parameters of the clothing/clothing parts (rotation, bend, etc.) to match the target figure's pose? 

    And if the above is correct, how do you deal with things like sitting, lying down, etc?

    it might be impossible to pose the clothing big enough so it 'knows' to drape around ... rather than ignoring it.

    That said, in most of THOSE cases, I've found it still easier to scale the figure down until it fits, drape, freeze, parent clothing to the figure, and then scale back up. Generally, it's better to have more cloth to drape than stretch the heck out of it.

     

     

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    I usually pose figure and, if too much falls outside the clothing, shrink figure, drape and get everything right, freeze and parent to the figure, scale figure back up.

    I THINK there are problems if you try to scale the clothing itself, though there may be ways to modify that in the tool window.

     

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548

    with the controllable dynamic cloak, it refuses to do animated drapes at all, and with the single frame draping, it throws an error message about the settings being to extreme (the default settings, mind you!)  has anyone else had this happen.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    Odaa said:

    with the controllable dynamic cloak, it refuses to do animated drapes at all, and with the single frame draping, it throws an error message about the settings being to extreme (the default settings, mind you!)  has anyone else had this happen.

    yeh. unparent if it is, then try some manual stuff. Ive found some items parent to a figure, and getting them in so they don't parent has made it easier.

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548

    thank you!  I'm not sure which of the setting fiddlings fixed it, but it's working now.  I recommend raising the internal pressure and the weight a little bit, and pushing the gravity up to three.  it seems to make the cloak behave more realistically.

  • djigneodjigneo Posts: 283

    I'm thinking of purchasing the full plug-in. I have a couple questions for someone who has played with it:

    1. Is it possible to modify clothing panels to be "rigid" (as in, not bending on their own, but parented to the cloth), such as buttons, etc?
    2. Is the idea behind "pinning" (as mentioned earlier in this topic) to pick a cloth panel and set the friction high so that it doesn't move from the (invisible) primitive it collides with?
  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    djigneo said:

    I'm thinking of purchasing the full plug-in. I have a couple questions for someone who has played with it:

    1. Is it possible to modify clothing panels to be "rigid" (as in, not bending on their own, but parented to the cloth), such as buttons, etc?
    2. Is the idea behind "pinning" (as mentioned earlier in this topic) to pick a cloth panel and set the friction high so that it doesn't move from the (invisible) primitive it collides with?

    You can play with four properties in the Panel Tab, you need the full version iirc; Bend, Shear, Stretch X and Stretch Y. Increase those will make items more resistant to movement in certain ways. Friction will stop items moving as much, and weight can assist too.

    I bought a dynamic hair product from optitex, and I never use it as other than easier stuff, it seems annoying to get working in a believable manner - so there will be issues. I like dynamics, and wish there was a lot more.

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232

    I think the best that can be done is "nearly" — adjust the Bend Resistance setting until it's nearly rigid, adjust the Friction setting so it nearly doesn't move. A lot of experimenting, tweaking, and re-draping will probably be required to get the sort of results you want.

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437

    I think we need to add to this thread examples of what can be done. Dynamics in Studio seems to have a pretty bad rap, and we ought to try to change that.

    Post your pictures, people... and if you have a tip to go along with it, add that to.

    I used the Dynamic Sheet here. Took a while to get it down, but I learned a lot.  Had to create some cube primitives to get the sheet to drape properly because the bed frame geometry was too thin in areas. Also, I waited until the end of my process to try to do the sheet drape. Bad idea.

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310

    Ooh tip!

     

    If your planing on using dynamics set up everything on frame 15 or so. A lot of times I end up having to have the drape at least partially animated, and it can be a pain to get the fist frame to something neutral, but keep the later frames exactly the same

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    j cade said:

    Ooh tip!

     

    If your planing on using dynamics set up everything on frame 15 or so. A lot of times I end up having to have the drape at least partially animated, and it can be a pain to get the fist frame to something neutral, but keep the later frames exactly the same


    And something I've found to be handy...extend the end a few frames.  Often there is still a little bit of draping that doesn't quite finish, so adding maybe 5 more frames does the trick.

     

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878
    edited February 2016

    Also remember you can change drape formats. You can do animated drape... and then a few instances of static drapes. Or change what stuff is colliding with between successive drapes. Or change fabric qualities, gravity, wind...

    The blanket didn't end up being as important as I thought, but this Dynamic Sheet (from the store) did the trick to help bring the scene together:

    http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Half-orc-newborn-590857761

    http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Dress-draped-on-chairp-573160695 (one of the Optitex freebie dresses)

    http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Redhead-Betty-555945593 (Betty freebie. Dynamic dresses are AWESOME for busty women)

    http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Dreamer-s-Key3-556718879 (The result of an experiment -- dynamic burka and then a conforming nightgown set to collide with the dynamic to shoehorn conforming -> dynamic)

    http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Exo-Gaucho-557469221 (great for unusual characters!)

    https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/t31.0-8/11083824_10205010248589858_6287246321148916080_o.jpg

    (The simple dynamic sheet can do so much... in this case, I used a sheet to make this pressed membrane-like thing coming out of the wall with a demon head behind it. Or a cat. Or something. She's also wearing one of the Optitex freebie hospital gowns)

     

    Post edited by Oso3D on
  • SociopathSociopath Posts: 7

    If anyone is still watching this thread, I have a question about material settings. Is there a table or some sort of guideline on settings for different kinds of materials? I've searched and haven't found anything, but imagine there has to be something out there. Would be nice just to have a starting point for clothes I've used Dyncreator on. 

Sign In or Register to comment.