Confused about weight maps & dForce

Hexdrake21

Hi,

I think I understand how weight maps work, but in this instance I have a skirt split into 4 zones - skirt 1, 2, 3, & 4. Zones 2-4 are all painted red 100%. Despite this, zone 4, or the part that would drag on the floor, will not move. Of course, my character is horizontal so this will not do. *Something* is holding it up in mid-air. This is a 3rd party item, but I had the same issue with the Classic Fur Cape and managed to erase all the maps and repaint it, which was fine bc I just wanted it to fall on the ground. This time, I want to avoid repainting the whole skirt bc it is a shoulder to foot garment that has multiple maps I want to avoid doing the same work the creator did all over again. Does anyone know what normally holds these garments down? Is there some lock I am not seeing that doesn't show up in the weight map tabs? The statistics for Skirts 2 & 3 are virtually identical to Skirt 4, so I am having trouble figuring out what is holding it up. There are other maps on the bones, but they affect other areas of the skirt, and none of them seem to cover Skirts 2 & 3 and not Skirt 4. I ahve attached a pic to show you what I am working with - as you can see Skirt 4 is all red yet still in mid-air after simming.

 

felis

As far as I can see you are weightpainting the bones in the dress, that is used when posing.

After you have applied dForce to your dress, you must Create > New dForce Modifier Weight Node (with the dress seleted in the scene tab), and then it is that you must paint.

hansolocambo

I think I understand how weight maps work [...]

Nope ;) Your are confusing weight maps :

A : Weight map defined after a 3D mesh has been rigged. This one specifies how each bone influences the mesh.

B : Weight Map defined after a dForce Dynamic Surface has been applied. This one specifies how much each vertex will be influenced by both Simulation Properties defined in the Surfaces Tab, and Simulation Settings defined for the Environment.

 

It's the same Node Weight Brush Tool used for both. But it's not at all the same weight maps. Weight map for BONES (A) and weight map for DFORCE (B) can coexist on the same model.

In your screenshot, you have a bone Skirt 04 selected, and General Weights you see are from the A process. Vertices weighting to bones. It has nothing to do with dForce.

 

A: Weighting of vertices to a skeleton. You select a bone in the hierarchy, go to Tool Settings, Click on general Weights, and define influence of the selected bone on the wireframe.

B: Weighting of vertices to define what % of each Surface Properties (defined in the Surfaces Tab) will influence each vertex. 1/ You apply a dForce Dynamic Surface to any object. 2/ You Create > New dForce Modifier Weight Node. This Modifier node appears in the Scene Tab, parented to the mesh you applied it to. Select that Weight Node, go to Tools Settings Tab > Weight Maps > dForce Simulation : Influence Weights > Add Map. You now see in red (by default all vertices receive 100% of the dynamics defined in the Surfaces Tab) the Influence weights. You can then use the Node Weight Brush Tool to select geometry, fill weights on selection, paint weights, smooth weights, etc.

 

N.B : B totally takes over A. Meaning : if a shirt for example is completely rigged and its vertices weighted at 100% to some bones (red defined in process A of weighting), but those vertices are also 100% influenced by the Surface Properties (red defined in process B of weighting),  then once simulated those vertices will move influenced only by their density, by gravity, wind, etc. Basically any physical force defined in the environment or their Surface. Weighting to bones, corrective morphs, etc. All that won't matter anymore. If vertices are 100% influenced by their Surface properties, then dForce Weight map will prevail while the dForce simulation is running. That's why in any 3D app I know of, we usually run the physics simulation at the very end : after posing and animations are done.

That's also why one needs to paint, during the B process, some parts of a cloth in blue or grey : vertices less affected by Surface Properties will help the cloth to keep some of its shape. Another way is to create different Surface Groups so that all vertices are not influenced by the same Surface Properties.

The less vertices are influenced by Surface Properties while the dForce simulation is running, the more they will receive influence from the bones.

Richard Haseltine

To be clear, all the weight maps belong to the model - the additional node is merely there to provide something that can be selected to edit the maps, deleting it after the maps have been edited will not remove the weighting.

Richard Haseltine

Also, to add - it isn't that dForce overrides the bones, but the simulation incorporates the the effect of the bones. If you change the pose after the simulation it will affect the mesh. The final shape is the result of all the modifiers in effect - bones, dForce, morphs, dForm, Push, Smoothing, and any add-ons.

Hexdrake21

Thanks for the response. I am not sure I understand, but basically they are two different weight sets and the dForce overides the bones. What I am confused about, is that there is no weight map on the coat/skirt, and yet Skirts 2 & 3 are obviously moving in the dForce simulation, while Skirt 4 is stuck on a point, but moving around that point. Putting that aside for a moment, I painted the entirety of Skirt 4 bright red, and simmed, and got the exact same results (see attached). If the dForce weights override any bone weights, Skirt 4 should have dropped like a rock, shouldn't it? As you can see, the skirt is still hanging in mid-air, but parts of it are simulating.

After I added the dForce weights, I went back and changed all the Skirt bone weight maps to 97% and tried simming again. It is still stuck in the air. This is why I believe either it has:
1) some setting that is holding the end of the skirt in that position or,

2) there are no bone weight maps allowing it to travel in the downward direction (I think X-axis in this case)

As I don't really know what I'm doing LOL all I can look at are the maps and all of them seem to be the same. And when I added the dForce maps, again, it would seem like Skirt 4 at the very least would not be stuck in that position and would drop.

Richard Haseltine

Bones do, if their weightmaps allow, affect a dForce item - but in simulating their impact is generally overwhelmed (however, if a bone is moving very fast it may add more momentum to the affected mesh than the dForce simulation can diffuse, leading to an "explosion"). If you move the bone after the simulation you will find that it has th expected effect in terms of movement, but starting from the smulated postion.

In the absence of a weightmap the effect of the simulation is not modulated - but of course the dynamic strength setting in the Surfaces pane may still cause it to have no effect.

felis

Maybe try to look at this tutorial by Mada 

 

Hexdrake21

Thanks felis, that does help. The problem was I didn't save, close Daz, and then come back and try the same exact thing and have it work. I am not exactly sure what I did, but perhaps all my undo's, redo's, and re-sims screwed something up. I basically painted the dForce maps like you guys suggested and ran the sim and it worked. I did change the Stretch Stiffness to the same as SY's dForce cape - a .40 instead of a .55. I am not sure that a .55 would have had that effect, but I don't know what all the parameters do by heart. The frustrating thing about working with this is I never know if it is the program or what I am doing. This has happened multiple times when I do something by the book and the program doesn't work, so I think it is me when in fact it is Daz. I know there are a lot of variables and it's a free program - not like some of those others out there that can be hundreds of dollars per year of even per month. So a suggestion for anyone working in Daz - when in doubt, save as a seperate file, reload, and try again if you think the workflow is correct.

Thanks for all the help guys - I think I have the workflow down for next time! I should probably just buy that Cloth dForce preset program (I have the hair one and can highly advise it if you aren't an expert with dForce).