Simulating clothes on just one figure when you have multiple figures in the scene?
stripe6499_9253833ae8
Posts: 126
So, let's suppose that I'm a sucker for punishment and I have 3 or 4 figures in a scene. I want to simulate the clothes on each figure, one at a time. Some of the figures are sitting, and we all know how well that goes with skirts. So, I know I can simulate individual items if I don't use timeline or simulate from memorised pose. But what if I need to use one of those two methods because of the seating issue? Can I freeze the other figures in place so they don't revert to the memorized pose? Or animate on the timeline?
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I can't recommend dForce Companion highly enough, as that greatly simplifies the process. As it is, you can manually set Freeze Simulation to On for each item that you don't want to simulate.
edit: and after re-reading your post, you can also set items to be invisible in simulations in the Display tab of parameters.
Yep, I got that a while ago and it's my goto. The problem is that in Simulate From Pose or Timeline, all the other figures move as well. I was wondering if there's a way to prevent this.
I am not aware of that that can be avoided.
But why does it matter?
There is a Simulate Selected command in the Simulation Settings option menu>dForce sub menu (as I recall) - don't forget to include the things the items need to collide with as well as the dynamic items themselves.
If there is no interaction between the figure you're simulating and other figures, I think setting 'Visible in simulation' to 'Off' in the Display section of the parameters of a figure should prevent that figure to be simulated.
As far as I remember, it doesn't prevent that figure's clothes to be simulated (and since the figure is invisible to simulation…), so if that figure is wearing already simulated clothes, don't forget to set 'Freeze simulation' to 'On' for each piece of clothes.
While simulating with Timeline Play Range, you cannot prevent figures' pose from being changed unless you give no animation to the figures.
But if simulating with Current Frame + Start Bones From Memorized Pose, you can prevent by...
- without dForce Companion, Ctrl + Select the root node of a figure and the attached dForce items you want to simulate, then right click on the tab of Simulation Settings, Simulate Selected.
- with dForce Companion, just check the dForce items you want to simulation in dForce Companion pane, then uncheck Visible on the figures that you don't want them to move... then click Simulate checked button.
I would just completely hide everything except for the collision figure being used at the time - the only exception being if the simulation requires interaction with something - in which case I'd leave that visible.
In my normal workflow, nothing else will even be in the scene - just the figure I'm simulating onto.
Thank you for all the tips and advice. I'm trying to improve my understanding of simulation. Timeline is still frustrating, but I'm getting there with simulating from Memorised pose.
I create the sitting or other morphs first with an animated drape and Dforce2morph
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce2morph
then you need to reload the outfit, don't use start from memorised pose just run the sim
most my most used dresses now have a few basic starting morphs that can just be used without simulation at all thanks to that script
My default procedure is to leave the pose at frame 0 the default pose for that figure. I begin my animations at frame 30. So the first actual render of my animations begin at frame 30.
This gives me the 29 frame between to make pose changes to the character to help the result of that first frame - frame 30.
So if the animation clearly defines that the character was already in motion before frame 30 (example - the character is already walking) I'll use frame 20 or perhaps even 15 to set up for that.
Example:
The walk cycle begins with the hip at 0 in Z translation, and the hip is at 74 Z at frame 60, I'd go back to my neutral pose at frame 0 and back the hip up to -74 Z
The difference between doing that and Not doing that makes all the difference for that first frame (30) as to how the simulation turns out.
If the character is falling from above, I'll go to frame 20 and paste the hip's coordinates from frame 30, so that I get a little rest time before the character begins falling. If needed, I can also raise it some.
If I want the hair to start behind her shoulders, and I want to make sure, I might tilt the head back at frame 0 slightly enough to not mess with the initial simulation, a little more at frame 10, and use frame 20 how I need it - either to bring the neck back to where it should be, or add even more back bend to really get that hair to start behind those shoulders.
That example is me using Linday's dForce hair products.
Happy Birthday! :)
Thank you for all the tips and advice. I'm trying to improve my understanding of simulation. Timeline is still frustrating, but I'm getting there with simulating from Memorised pose. Hmm, I can confirm that using DForce Companion, even with only one item selected for simulation and all the other clothing items unselevted and the visible and smoothing boxes unselected, all the figures in the scene still revert to default poses and go through the pose change when using Simulate from memorised pose option.
I haven't found a good use case for Simulate from Memorized Pose; I always uncheck it.
It is useful if the figure needs to be posed to fit into the zeroed clothing item - for example because matching the base pose would introduce distortions, or because it was made for a different figure.
Anecdotally, simulating from memorized pose seems to take longer than simulating the timeline from the memorized pose.
Well, it depends on the values we give it.
Simulate from Memorized Pose works really good for difficult and problematic simulations.
Example:
If a simulation seems to only go so far before exploding to bits, we can simulate up to near that point and cancel. Then come back to that problem area, Memorize a good starting position for the figure to start at, and do a second simulation starting from memorized pose to complete the simulation.
Of course, in these situations, I plan a camera switch, like in movie and TV, right at that moment.
Most of the time, however, I never use Memorized Pose and leave it unchecked.
I prefer to use the timeline to set up for the intro to the simulation and, since I'm starting from a default neutral pose - or something close enough to it to work for the simulation, I never need to start from that memorized pose.
For action scenes, like when she's fighting, running, jumping, etc., I'll also leave "Initialization Time" at 0.00, otherwise I normally give it 0.50 to let it get started on a drape before it starts simulating through the frames.
Again, Initialization time can be a big help if we want to direct how the simulation begins. We can turn the character sideways along the z axis on frame 0 and give it at least a little time for initialization to start the cloth or hair flowing in that direction.
These sorts of ideas makes that initial 30 frame buffer zone in the timeline an absolute dream to work with.