dForce animation conundrum
marble
Posts: 7,500
I can't get my head around this. Let's say I have an object with a cloth already draped in Frame 0 of an animation.
I want to move the object so that it causes the cloth to slip off to the ground by the end of the animation.
But I can't figure out how to do that.I have tried using the animation timeline and the cloth just stays conformed to the shape of the object. It does NOT move as I had moved it in the last frame so that it can fall off the object to the floor.
Am I trying something impossible? Surely not?
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Or to put it in simple terms - how to get the cloth to move (and drape) during an animation?
Did you do a simulation using the play range? Is the cloth anchored - it won't fall off if it is over a moving object unless it is off centre (so it would slide off anyway) or held from moving (e.g. by a primitive that stays put).
Yes I used the animation timeline option for simulation. No the cloth is not anchored.
I tried with a simple scene - a sphere and a plane (plane with dForce enabled). Trying to move the plane during the animation and have it drape is impossible.All I want to do is to start with the cloth resting on the object (sphere) and then, during the animation, move the sphere one way and the plane in another direction so that it slides off the sphere.
If you can explain how to do that I would be very grateful because either I'm just plain dozy or it can't be done with dForce. As far as I know, with any other cloth simulation, this is trivial because you can pull the cloth during the drape.
By the way, a second (just as confusing) problem is that, at the start of every simulation, the cloth resets so it is not possible to start the simulation with the cloth resting on the sphere. I tried draping first with "current frame" and then the animation but the cloth still resets at the start of the animation. I then tried having an initialisation period which seem to help but I don't really want the cloth to reset at all.
Turn off start from memorised pose, or memorise the object (Edit>Object>Memorise>Memorise Selected Node(s) )
As for getting the cloth to slide off, you probably need to give the scene some asymmetry so that the plane has more weight on one side than the other, to drag it off, perhaps decreasing the default friction values too.
Again - I am not using Start from Memorized ... as I said, I am using the animation option. No matter what I do, the cloth resets at the start of the drape just like it does if "Clear" had been clicked. There seems to be no way to drape cloth from an already draped state.
Still, this is secondary to the main issue as described above.
Yes, that's exactly what I decided was the only way it might work but it didn't. At least not satisfactorily - as cloth would normally behave if it was pulled or moved across the surface of the object.
Seems to be just another serious limitation of a half-baked DAZ Studio feature. This is exactly why so many people want to export to other applications. I might have to look at exporting the active objects to Marvelous Designer.
Oh, I see - yes, starting a simulation will clear any existing simulation data on items that haven't been frozen - if you want to take a simulation as a starting point for anothe you have to turn it into a morph, currently by exporting as OBJ and loading back in through a Morph Loader.
Start From Memorised Pose is available regardless of whether it's a single frame animation or play range, however.
nm
Ok, I don't mean to be dismissive of dForce (which is free, after all) but it does have some serious limitations which is why I said half-baked. Not being able to manipluate the cloth while draping is one. Having to save to a morph do sort-of achieve what I described above (secondary point) is another. I do know how to save as a morph, by the way.
Yes, I too have cloth sliding off when I don't want it to but that is not the object of the exercise. All I want to do is to move the cloth during the drape. Sliding off was the initial goal but the simple action of moving the cloth during an animation and animating it while moving seems impossible. It should be trivial. If you can come up with a way, I would be very glad of the information but I seriously doubt it.
Try it with the sphere and the plane - a few minutes should tell you that what I'm saying is true - you can't move the cloth and drape it at the same time.
nm
I think I am aware that 3D (as in computer software) is not real life. Did that really need to be added?
nm
bye.
Considering all the things that are possible with cloth sims in general. All the things that are commonplace in games or possible in MD or Blender (as you mentioned), I don't think it is such a big stretch to think that maybe moving cloth during a simulation might be possible. I mean, it is so basic: cloth is not static.
So now my poor little brain is mulling over some things. How would we, for example, simulate a flag being lowered? Is there a difference if the flag is attached to a rope and the rope is lowered?
The whole point of simualting is to have the item act like real cloth, so if you want tit to move it has to be attached to something that is moving - if the node movementss till applied then things like skirts would have the leg bones competing with the drape, with undesirable results in all probability.
Exactly. It has to be attached to something that's moving - it can't be moved otherwise. This has what has been difficult for me to get my head around because I would have thought it trivial to move the cloth while draping. Obviously it takes software much more sophisticated than dForce - such as Marvelous Designer which does enable movement while draping (you can pull it around at will while it is draping). But then there is the VWD cloth simulator which appeared before dForce which allows for the same kind of manipulation.
I'll rethink my methods and I have a kind of vague idea that maybe parenting to a null or some object which can be made invisible might be a means to an end.
I did try it with some primitives and was able to get close to the effect I wanted by placing another primitive between the cloth and the original object. I then animated the in-between primitive so that the cloth was dragged by it. I played with the scale and friction settings to get the effect of the cloth sliding off (reducing the size of the primitive significantly towards the end of the animation).
It did not work with a null, by the way. It clearly needs something "solid" to collide with and also, parenting was not a good idea either.
This should help - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/208141/how-to-use-dforce-creating-a-blanket-draping-clothes-on-furniture-and-much-more-commercial#latest
Just about all the really important stuff you need to know about using dforce. There is a section about exactly what you're trying to do.
Sure - I must have missed that section because I have tried to follow the develpments in that thread but it is so massive that it is easy to miss something.
I agree, that thread is massive and hard to keep track of. There's a really well organized table of contents, with links, at the top. It's being added to regularly still, and is without a doubt the most complete repository of dForce info I've found yet.