How the heck does the dForce Raiding Cloak work?
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,643
https://www.daz3d.com/ssc-dforce-raiding-cloak-for-genesis-3-and-8
I purchased this a while back and decided to try it today. However, even following the directions (and for heaven's sake, can't you guys decide on a single folder for all product readme's and PDFs instead of spreading them all over creation?), I can't understand how you're supposed to prevent the figure's arms from poking through and ultimately exploding the simulation. The included default pose we're supposed to use has the arms by the sides, but since there's no arm holes, if you want them raised in your final frame, they eventually try to bust through the cloak and blow everything up.
If you're supposed to use the cloak's morphs before starting the simulation, the end result is extremely unpredictable because all of the morphs are basically wind-blown presets. I'm not sure why the arms actually break through during the simulation either, shouldn't they just continue to lift the cloak up as they are raised higher?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
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Comments
I don't have that product.
But I would assume that the arms are inside the cape in the default pose, and if so, then you should be able to use animated timeline for simulation, where you e.g. set your wanted pose at frame 15.
Yes, that's what the tutorial says to do, and I tried it with 30 and 60 frames of simulation. The arms start breaking through around frame 11 or so and the polygon explosion hits one or two frames later.
You may need to do a play range simualtion, swinging the arms in and forwards through the opening at the front before going up. You may also need to use the best collision detecton and/or increase the number of subframes or iterations per subframe to let the energy diffuse.
I have that cloak but haven't done anything with it yet - I'll play around with it today and report back.
*Update* This cloak is definitely a challenge...it seems that unless it's billowing out completely away from the body, you need to have the hands/arms at the subject's side...I haven't been able to simulate a timeline yet where I can bring the hands up (in my test case, folded in front of the body), even when I have the arms actually pass through the body so as not to cut through the cloak. I'll keep trying though.
Also of note - the cloak needs a lot of manipulation to simulate on top of any clothing not saran-wrapped to the body.
I was going to try that next Richard, but it looks like Melissa confirmed that it is a pain in the butt overall. That's disappointing because it looked like a well made and flexible item. Thank you very much for the testing and information.
Unfortunately, most of this vendor's work suffers from the same issues, going back to the Poser Cloth Room.
If you can get them to behave, they have the potential to look great. Getting them to behave is generally an exercise in frustration.
Yeah, I haven't had a single success yet. Honestly...the cloak looks amazing in the promos, but if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have bought it. (And I consider myself at least a little savvy with dForce.)
Something that would have been extremely useful...bones. The cloak has no bones, which would have been great to help make it fit and move properly for simulating something other than a simple standing-with-arms-at-side position. There are built in morphs, but so far they've been completely useless to me. A user shouldn't need to use dformers or create custom starrting morphs of their own just to use a product as intended.
That is too bad, guess it's time to take it off my wishlist. Does look great in the promos though.
Honestly, I have no idea what wizardry the creator used to get the simulations in those promos...the sitting one and the one with the vampire touching her face. I can't see how it's possible with the different morphs that are provided, not even taking clothing into account...not lunless there were dformers and/or multiple simulations at play (where you simulate, save as a morph, simulate again from that saved morph, etc).
I had alot of trouble with this one, https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-femme-fatale-dress-for-genesis-3-and-8-females . I spent a good several hours trying to get it to work before returning it.
I have that dress...that was one of the easier ones, which is telling...but I think only because it has sleeves.
*Update* I am making some progress, but now am suffering explosions that make no sense because I'm simulating from a standing position so there really should be nothing to make it explode. Back to the drawing board...
*Update #2* This is actually kind of infuriating. I got it to drape *once* but for whatever reason it was excessively long...like it actually grew in length during the simulation and everything ended up looking sretched like putty...which also messed up the textures. Now I can't get it to simulate again. *sigh* See my one successful drape with the uber stretched textures towards the bottom...that is just not acceptable.
Have you restarted DS? I had issues with one pece from set, and then everything else was giving issues so I thought the whole set was broken but in fact a restart cured the problems.
I'm restarting now.
I was able to drape it again using some tweaked simulation settings (looks like the cloak comes out of the box with the vanilla settings)...but that changed the over all look...so back to the drawing board again, lol.
*Update* Restarting didn't help. This is now boiling down to really bad built-in morphs that don't do what you need them to do, no bones to customize the drape, and bad out of the box simulation settings. Once I get it to drape properly, I'll post my results and what I did to get them. Suffice it to say, this cloak is not for dForce beginners.
..and way to much work and effort for advanced users obviously. Shame this never came up when released so DAZ could take a look at it and get it fixed.
thanks for your efforts in trying to get it to work though!
Thank you for your work on this Melissa. I just had one thought, but I don't know a lot about the deep workings of dForce; could there be some setting that is making the cloth act as if it's too 'thin', allowing the arms and hands to break through? This is the only dForce garment I have used that consistently does this, and perhaps something changed with the simulating engine since its release that breaks the default settings (the manual actually says to use the default load settings, that it's set up for this).
The cloth on the cloak does look too thin visually, but I don't believe that effects dForce. That being said, I can verify that the settings that come with the cloak do not work (I've attached my settings below). I had this all worked out so I could tell you exactly what I did to be able to get these results, but sadly, my computer decided to do a NOPE on me and ultimately needed a reinstall of Windows so I lost the most recent version of the scene file. I'll try to recall from memory how I got even these results -
This was the first pass and there was still some tweaking I wanted to do on the cloak, but because of my system issues, I lost the scene file and couldn't finish. This had to do. So I'm sure you've already discovered that the Raiding Cloak has pretty much useless morphs to help you be able to part the clock properly for hand movement. There are some morphs, but they move the entire cloak, including the hood (why), and cause distorion around the bottom, essentially stretching everything. What I did was set the timeline for 100 frames, and at frame 17 added in one of the "front" morphs and one of the "left" morphs. The simulation was set to run the length of the timeline with the figure in the set final pose (clothing was simulated with a transition pose separately and first). A transition pose *did not* work and resulted in the hand explosions no matter how I got the hands to the final position (I even tried passing them through the body so they wouldn't interact with the cloak til the end). Lasly, I had to set up a helper object to come in mid-way through the simulation and nudge the opening of the cloak to the left, so it would fall past her fingers. So yeah, even this simple pose required entirely too much work. This pose is not difficult for dForce...I use it as my regular "let's-test-this-new-dforce-set" pose and has worked on every article of clothing I've thrown at it, dresses included. Oh, I also forgot to mention that I simulated at SubD 2.
Other problems also cropped up. The cloak starts to fall apart at the shoulders because there really isn't much to it. It will clip through the hood if you have any hood adjustments for hair (as I did). So, to get around that, I had to set up some dformers to keep the hood from clipping the shoulders prior to running the simulation. I tried mesh grabber, which caused stretching so I'm not sure if that's a defect with mesh grabber...I haven't used it much and for this project dformers did the job better). If you look closely in my image, you can still see issues at the top. Some pepole might not be bothered by them, but it's too much for me. The material appears way too thin to be a cloak (throw an offset on it). The textures are also not good when viewed closer.
All in all...I'm not happy with this purchase, but I'm beyond the return period. You shouldn't have to use dformers and helper objects for simple poses and there should be better starter morphs for an object that relies on dforce. There should be bones in the side of the cloak so that you can more easily separate the front for hands.
I also have OOT's medieval cloaks, and I haven't tried those yet. I should try and post my results here.
*Note - I could not find the manual...there is a script in the product folder, however it doesn't do anything when I click it*
Lovely resullt, Melissa, but wow that sounds ike a lot of work!
I have the Duchess dress from the same vandor and it loads well in a standing pose and does a good job of following minor adjustments. I have yet to try posing the figure in it though.
Very interesting read, I have this cloak but not tried it, now I wish I had and could return it.
Melissa could you log a ticket with your findings and maybe CS can get some updates to make it more user friendly. I haven't had much luck with dForce since they changed the timeline or time to sit down and figure it out. :-(
This thread has me checking when I bought this item to see if I still have time to return it :/
Which is a shame because it looks really nice. I'll have to test it first, though. But if y'all are having trouble, I doubt I'll be able to do better
This one has been in my wishlist for a while. I have a few of their other products, which seem nice. This cloak really looks great in the renders. How the heck did the PA pull off all those poses and not give some instructions about how to recreate the results? Hopefully there will be an update at some point because I'd still like to get it eventually if the bugs are worked out.
Ok so one more update...I played around with it a bit more and got it to drape using a transitional pose over 100 frames...the starter pose being the one that comes with the cloak. A couple notes -
- I had to add a dForce weight map node and paint the "pin bar" area to not move. Otherwise, it will move and the pin will not move with it...thus making the pin float in the air by itself and making the neck of the cloak fall too far. Again, I'm not sure how the advertising renders were produced without a painted dForce weight map. I've seen other similar articles of clothing, such as the dForce clothing made by Mada, use rigid follow nodes...I'm not sure why that was not employed here. Even the new dForce fur cloak that was mentioned above uses rigid follow nodes (that's a great product, btw, and I've had zero issues with it so far). Also, the Scottish Wear outfit underneath that my character is wearing uses ridgid follow nodes. They are literally the bees knees when it comes to dForce.
- Again, the out of the box dForce settings do not work. They result in explosions. I ended up having to use the same settings I posted above.
- Again, I had to make use of helper objects, this time a sphere used to nudge the opening just a smidge past the fingers. After the simulation, I had to use Mesh Grabber to nudge it the rest of the way.
I'm going to try out OOT's cloaks to see if they are any easier to use.
*Update*
Well, it seems the OOT High Fantasy Cloaks are even more of a problem...they have no starter morphs to help with dForce simulations so they are pretty much only meant for straight standing with arms at the side...at least the one similar long one is. I also could not find a morph to have the hood up.
Next I'll try Luthbel's Wise Wizard cloak. Ihavetoomanyoutfits.
Maaaaaaaan, I have OOT's High Fantasy Cloaks, but haven't used them yet.
I'm actually just about to simulate Wise Wizard, once another simulation finishes.
Wise Wizard simulates well (I was actually able to simulate the Scottish Wear outfit with it), but it's not floor-length like the Raiding Cloak, so it's not as...fancy-pants for sure. Also, the hood doesn't work so so well for hair (I had to inject Fit Control morphs but it still doesn't look quite right). Pretty much if you want a fancy floor-length cloak with hood up, then Raiding Cloak is it, albeit with limitations. You might be able to produce good results with helper objects, dformers/mesh grabber, and custom morphs (simulating once, saving as morph, simulating again with your own starter morph). Granted it's not ideal and requires more than a beginning knowledge of dForce, but so far as I can see, it's the only option for a fancy floor-length cloak with the hood up. If you want a more practical cloak for travel or with the hood down, then I'd suggest Wise Wizard or the new fur cloaks for sure (yes, Wize Wizard will work on females). The OOT High Fantasy Cloak #3 could be an option for a fancy floor-length cloak with the hood down, but like I said, it has no starter morphs. You'd have to get really creatiive with helper objects, etc to get that one to jump through hoops.
You're quite the cape crusader.
Haha, I see what ya did there.
Ok, here is Wise Wizard with the hood down. It's a beautiful cloak and simulates...beautifully...haha. I could simulate it from the standard A pose in a transitional timeline with no issues...and simulated it along with the Scottish Wear outfit. All I had to do was add a mesh offset of .5...which I like anyways becuase I like the look of the thicker material for the cloak. Just make sure to set up the dForce collision layers and you're good to go. I mean, it's Luthbel, so it's to be expected. (My only complaint, and it's minor, is that the pin/brooch needs to be moved manually on female figures...but like I said, it's a minor complaint because it was made for males and I'm going off-script with it, lol.)
I'm actually going to be simulating everything BUT the hooded cloak for mine.