Animated Dynamic Clothing Technique (proof of concept)

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  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    The big issue I seem to have now is that the cloth animation is showing in the assemble room, but when I render, the cloth stays in its frame 0 position throughout.

    Hi PhilW, Did you find the cause of this. It sounds like a bug. I haven't come across this myself and wonder if it is because I'm on a Mac which uses the QuickTime codec. I'm asking because JonStark is running into the same problem.

    I'm wondering what the outcome is when the render with this issue is saved to file (is the cloth still motionless) and also what happens if the render is rendered as individual files.


    I am following the discussion but probably won't have a chance to play again for a few days - I did not find a solution to the issue yet.

  • stringtheory9stringtheory9 Posts: 411
    edited December 2014

    PhilW said:
    PhilW said:
    The big issue I seem to have now is that the cloth animation is showing in the assemble room, but when I render, the cloth stays in its frame 0 position throughout.

    Hi PhilW, Did you find the cause of this. It sounds like a bug. I haven't come across this myself and wonder if it is because I'm on a Mac which uses the QuickTime codec. I'm asking because JonStark is running into the same problem.

    I'm wondering what the outcome is when the render with this issue is saved to file (is the cloth still motionless) and also what happens if the render is rendered as individual files.


    I am following the discussion but probably won't have a chance to play again for a few days - I did not find a solution to the issue yet.

    Ok, thanks. Hopefully by then we will have found the cause or at least some kind of workaround.

    Post edited by stringtheory9 on
  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969


    If I were to guess I would say that the sequencing mechanism for that object channel is getting corrupted some how.

    I am at a loss on this one. I am curious though what would happen if you opened the baked object in a new project window and rendered.

    Tried it to see. Just opened a whole new window, loaded in the cloth object only. I can see once again by scrubbing through the animation tools in the assembly room that all the movement seems to be perfectly baked into the cloth, it ripples and moves correctly through the air, but when I render, once again a long series of static unmoving images of the object. Weirdness.

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 2014

    In the Luxcore thread, saw joeping's latest physics based animation testing luxcore (wonderful, btw) and remember I have both luxus and octane. Fired Octane, in which I've never done an animation before, and started to animate (had to fiddle with the number of samples per frame to get it down enough that it would render within a timely manner, the default was set way higher than I needed).

    Here's the thing: when I render in Octane, the cloth is animating just as the physics suggest it should in the assembly room :) Problem must therefore be somewhere in the Carrara render room, at least that's what I'm guessing. Maybe there's some little checkbox somewhere I need to click to make it see the physics? Dunno, but since I love Carrara's render engine capabilities I'm hoping with a little time and effort a solution can be found, in the meantime I'm happy to find I can render it as an animation in Octane (now I've got to figure out how to save/export Octane animations...)

    I guess I won't have final confirmation this is working in Octane til I can see the finished render, but so far frame by frame it looks like the cloth is 'doing the right thing'.

    Edit: Dang, hit the wrong button somewhere and crashed Carrara... Have to try again from the top. (Shoot, just realized I didn't save the test scene at all...)

    Post edited by Jonstark on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    I can maybe try in Octane - that renders a sequence of PNG files and I then use a free program called VirtualDub to compile these into an AVI or whatever.

    If people are thinking they don't have the modelling skills to build a suitable "cloth suit", you could try loading one of the Level of Detail character files (eg. V4_LOD_4k.obj is what I used) from the Geometries folder, delete the head, hands and feet, select it all and use the Offset Surface command to add thickness to taste, and then use the built-in Polygon Group names to allocate the Vertex Group names. You can optionally delete polygons between each group to create some gaps between the pieces.

    Fascinating discussion!

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 841
    edited December 1969

    Hi Jonstark & Philw,

    I've carried out literally hundreds of simulations and rendered a huge number as animations without ever experiencing this problem.

    I have only used Carrara 8.5 32-bit for this and only have the native renderer.

    Jonstark, if you want to use physics cloth for static renders, then you only need the figure with its collision kept on and the cloth with a soft-body modifier applied. The figure needs to be posed and the cloth needs to be clear of the limbs at the start of the simulation. You could paint some vertices as soft-body-attach (on the neckline or round the waist, perhaps). That way you can reduce overall stiffness to a low level and it will still have regions which hold in place.

    I really, really don't want to divert you to wading through all of my old thread from the past because my posts were tedious reading and involved going down some blind alleyways but I recall posting some gifs and images here and there and links to videos of what I was attempting. If you are a glutton for punishment, you could take a look.

    You could try making a cape or poncho. Your mesh only needs to be disk-shaped or like a spider's web. The concentric rings of the mesh could vary in size. If you experiment with something like that, you can see how pleats and folds take place.

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    Marcus,
    I remember the good work which you had also done on this subject, can you find the link of this thread ?

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 841
    edited December 2014

    Hi Dudu

    I'm only on an Android tablet right now, and cant seem to paste the link.

    I'll type it and hope it works.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/37372

    The topic name is 'Trying out physics in Carrara'

    I searched on the topic name and found it straight away.

    EDITED for spelling

    Post edited by Hermit Crab on
  • stringtheory9stringtheory9 Posts: 411
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    I can maybe try in Octane - that renders a sequence of PNG files and I then use a free program called VirtualDub to compile these into an AVI or whatever.

    If people are thinking they don't have the modelling skills to build a suitable "cloth suit", you could try loading one of the Level of Detail character files (eg. V4_LOD_4k.obj is what I used) from the Geometries folder, delete the head, hands and feet, select it all and use the Offset Surface command to add thickness to taste, and then use the built-in Polygon Group names to allocate the Vertex Group names. You can optionally delete polygons between each group to create some gaps between the pieces.

    Fascinating discussion!

    Thank you! You have saved me hours of work and frustration. This is exactly what I need! :-)

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168
    edited December 2014

    Hi Dudu

    I'm only on an Android tablet right now, and cant seem to paste the link.

    I'll type it and hope it works.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/37372

    The topic name is 'Trying out physics in Carrara'

    I searched on the topic name and found it straight away.

    EDITED for spelling

    Thank you so much for posting the link. After watching your 15 minute video (which is great, BTW), I realize I was about to reinvent the wheel to try to establish a baseline (need something to compare the soft body method to).

    I did test on that unsupported figure, G2F Vicky 6 (just kidding about unsupported). The following does not use a proxy, it just uses a softbody attach at the collar and under the bust. Seems to work OK.

    Edited to remove gratuitous dig at people who say Genesis does not work in Carrara. Getting cranky.

    m2_modifiers.JPG
    241 x 517 - 31K
    m3_drape_skirt.JPG
    600 x 577 - 45K
    m1_start_v6.JPG
    820 x 646 - 62K
    Post edited by Diomede on
  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    Did not realize that the Carrara Octane didn't automatically convert to an actual animation when rendering an animation, instead it churns out a sequence of png files. Happily I was able to google the free VirtualDub app PhilW mentioned upthread (thanks Philw!) and converted my sequence into an avi. I have no idea how to upload an avi or animation to the forums though. Looks like most of you guys have links to youtube, is it difficult to get an animation on youtube?

    Happy to report that Octane can render my animated cloth just the same as the physics sim in the assembly room, so that's a sort-of easy solution for me til I figure out what the heck is going on that I can't seem to make it work in the actual Carrara render room. I'm running Carrara 8.5 (64bit) v8.5.0.243, maybe because it's 64 bit? I haven't tried the latest beta yet, mostly because it didn't look like it did much anyway and I'm too lazy to install/reinstall/find content etc.

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 2014

    Marcus, thanks for the link to the prior discussions, will be very helpful in shortening the learning curve for me :) You guys who have pioneered this and done tons of hard work are deserving of high praise.

    Picturing DAZ reading this thread and saying 'oh no, we finally got a good dynamic cloth sim ready to go for Carrara 9, but it looks like with the right know-how they can already do it with C8.5! How are we going to sell 9?? Horrors!' :)

    Post edited by Jonstark on
  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    ... so then I realized I already had a youtube channel built and uploading to it was a pretty straightforward easy snap. So first animation, very low quality in Octane, obviously I don't have the right cloth settings yet as there's still lots of jitter and bounce, but the important thing is that there's no pokethrough and this method really does seem to work well with fairly quick simulation computations. Yay! Stringtheory, you seriously rock, man! :)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Fq8Gy8bCU&feature=youtu.be

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168
    edited December 1969

    Jonstark said:
    ... so then I realized I already had a youtube channel built and uploading to it was a pretty straightforward easy snap. So first animation, very low quality in Octane, obviously I don't have the right cloth settings yet as there's still lots of jitter and bounce, but the important thing is that there's no pokethrough and this method really does seem to work well with fairly quick simulation computations. Yay! Stringtheory, you seriously rock, man! :)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Fq8Gy8bCU&feature=youtu.be

    fantastic job - keep it up. it gets a little more challenging when multiple bones move, but serious progress.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 2014

    I've noticed quite a lot of jitter in some of the animations that folks have posted, you could try adding a bit of Air Drag, I think this should help stabilise the cloth. I also have an idea about Carrara not rendering the animations for Jon and me, but I will test and get back on that!

    P.S. I just tested my theory and it wasn't the cause (for info, I thought that as I knew that Jon and I had Octane installed and were the ones getting issues, I temporarily uninstalled Octane but the issue persisted, so it isn't that).

    Post edited by PhilW on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    Just done a little more testing:
    Just a normal hard body Bullet object - renders normally
    Soft body on its own - renders normally
    Soft body with soft body attach (but a simple example rather than the full cloth sim as discussed in this thread) - rendering of the soft body sticks on the current frame and does not advance.
    Tried in Carrara 8.1 and that renders normally, this seems to only be an issue in C8.5

    I have submitted a bug report.

  • stringtheory9stringtheory9 Posts: 411
    edited December 2014

    PhilW said:
    Just done a little more testing:
    Just a normal hard body Bullet object - renders normally
    Soft body on its own - renders normally
    Soft body with soft body attach (but a simple example rather than the full cloth sim as discussed in this thread) - rendering of the soft body sticks on the current frame and does not advance.
    Tried in Carrara 8.1 and that renders normally, this seems to only be an issue in C8.5

    I have submitted a bug report.

    Based on these details just a thought for a possible workaround. Once you have run the soft body simulation it is possible to delete only the soft body attachment without resetting the simulation. I am wondering if deleting all soft body attachment will allow it to render correctly.

    Post edited by stringtheory9 on
  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    HEY IT WORKS !!!

    I did a very simple trial with a basic V4, a cloth mesh object, and a simple and transparent tube that fit around her arm. And it came out clean and very cool !!!

    http://youtu.be/-oz7HFWgI50

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168
    edited December 1969

    Great! Nice touch with the thumbs up sign.

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 2014

    PhilW said:
    Just done a little more testing:
    Just a normal hard body Bullet object - renders normally
    Soft body on its own - renders normally
    Soft body with soft body attach (but a simple example rather than the full cloth sim as discussed in this thread) - rendering of the soft body sticks on the current frame and does not advance.
    Tried in Carrara 8.1 and that renders normally, this seems to only be an issue in C8.5

    I have submitted a bug report.

    Based on these details just a thought for a possible workaround. Once you have run the soft body simulation it is possible to delete only the soft body attachment without resetting the simulation. I am wondering if deleting all soft body attachment will allow it to render correctly.

    Interesting idea, Stringtheory. Just tried it but still same result, the cloth object doesn't move during the animations. The simulation for the cloth still works fine in the assembly room and just to see I picked a random frame somewhere near the middle of my sequence and you can see it's behaving the way it should and staying attached and clothified in the single frame, but animation is still a no-go. This is a weird one for sure, but I'm not stressing too badly. If I really need I guess I could render each frame one at a time and assemble into an animation, or (much more likely) stick with rendering the animation in Octane instead. I haven't fired up Luxus to see if it will render out in Luxus correctly, but I'm assuming it will since it seems to render fine externall in Octane.

    Still, it was worth a shot :)

    cloth_xperiment_single_frame_carrara.jpg
    640 x 480 - 16K
    Post edited by Jonstark on
  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    Wow !!! Stringtheory gets the award for the most innovative and brilliant Carrara brilliant innovation of the decade !!!

    Who would have thought that if you can't get DAZ to fix the cloth vs. moving object collision problem, you set up a cloth vs. softbody attached cloth ??? Cool !!!

    Thanks Stringtheory !!!

    And the setup is really pretty straightforward. I couldn't figure out what his point was, but once I sat down and started a scene it worked first time !!

    Okay, now to get some groovy underclothes set up !!! :)

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    HEY IT WORKS !!!

    I did a very simple trial with a basic V4, a cloth mesh object, and a simple and transparent tube that fit around her arm. And it came out clean and very cool !!!

    http://youtu.be/-oz7HFWgI50

    I know, right? :) The thumbs up V4 gives made me chuckle, I didn't actually notice it at first til Diomede mentioned it.

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    BTW, someone mentioned that softbody attach doesn't seem to be calculating with 8.5 or something....

    Here's a video I did just after 8.5 was released, using cloth and softbody attach on a sliding curtain, and it has worked fine for me ever since.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7HeqSxNDOU

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 841
    edited December 1969

    It's nice seeing how this has caught the imagination and to see the successes people are having.

    I liked how Jonstark reported how much he was enjoying this as well as his foray into the vertex room (a place I only have limited knowledge of).

    Joemamma2000's video was doubly interesting because, not only was the cloth falling, the arm was moving to meet it and self-collision still held up.

    Diomede has experimented with the flared-out garment starting-point that I spent much of my time with.

    My thoughts earlier in the year were along the lines of building a rigged figure with very thin limbs. The limbs would be clad in collision capsules which would be more like the proportions of real limbs.

    My idea was to use the Makehuman figure for this - I could have borrowed the free-to-use mesh and kept the hands, head and feet for realism.

    As long as the rest of the body (covered in capsules) was hidden by clothes, it could have been ok.

    I didn't get round to it , alas.

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    It's kind of funny...or sad, depending on how you think about it...

    Back in the stone age, the earliest days of 3D in the late 80's and before, we were using simple spheres attached to characters as collision proxies so that cloth solutions would calculate in our lifetime :) ..... instead of colliding with high poly characters, you only calculate collisions with low poly proxies. A real pain, but it worked.

    And here we are, decades later, still doing effectively the same thing, for slightly different reasons. Kind of sad, and frustrating.

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    BTW, for those having challenges getting their physics simulations to work, here's a tutorial I did long ago that might help. It was designed for rigid body sims, but the basics apply to rigid and cloth Hope it helps.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/23632/

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 841
    edited December 1969

    I understand your sentiment JoeMamma2000, even though I've never worked in the industry and am no more than a hobbyist.

    I picked up on the idea of collision spheres/capsules from other software. It's interesting to learn that the technique has been around for such a long time.

    I like the curtains BTW.

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 841
    edited December 1969

    That tutorial of yours really explains things well, JoeMamma2000.

    Not only does it provide definitions, it shows how a task can be approached methodically - how to get the various parts of the equation right, one by one.

    Also it's written in a nice, easy to follow style.

    Thanks for the link.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    Just done a little more testing:
    Just a normal hard body Bullet object - renders normally
    Soft body on its own - renders normally
    Soft body with soft body attach (but a simple example rather than the full cloth sim as discussed in this thread) - rendering of the soft body sticks on the current frame and does not advance.
    Tried in Carrara 8.1 and that renders normally, this seems to only be an issue in C8.5

    I have submitted a bug report.

    Based on these details just a thought for a possible workaround. Once you have run the soft body simulation it is possible to delete only the soft body attachment without resetting the simulation. I am wondering if deleting all soft body attachment will allow it to render correctly.

    My current work-around would be to render in C8.1 provided you are not using a Genesis figure. Or to render in Octane if you are not using Carrara hair.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    HEY IT WORKS !!!

    I did a very simple trial with a basic V4, a cloth mesh object, and a simple and transparent tube that fit around her arm. And it came out clean and very cool !!!

    http://youtu.be/-oz7HFWgI50

    Very nice Joe!

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