Tip for: Spaghetti Straps - one way to help keep them up

Catherine3678ab

Having fun puttering away at trying to make MD .obj files into clothing in D/S.

Long story short, spaghetti straps tend to fall off the shoulders when DForce is applied. [they do to some point in RL too]. So I found a way to help keep them up a little better. Results vary with poses and Simulation settings of course.

I am not suggesting this for content creators so much as for those who like to tinker with their products to make them conform to the scene situation.

Starting with a dress that has a uvmap that I did not want destroyed ... I used Hexagon, and was able to achieve this.

From one strap, select a LINE and extra out mesh {holding down the Ctrl key}, then weld that line to its partner on the other side. Then select the horizontal lines {2} and click on the tessellation tool that will add a line evenly in the middle. Repeat until you have a few. If none are added the end result will look terrible.

Send the dress back over to D/S, it's an .obj file, ignore that these straps will be inside the figure, run the transfer utility making the clothing item, save the clothing item. Add the DForce modifier to the clothing, adjust the settings [go easy with gravity], I used the timeline - run the simulation.

If making morphs of these simulations, send the simulated clothing  over to Hexagon, in D/S clear the simulation, from Hexagon send the simulated item back over the bridge and make the morph. Draw it in, if keeping it, zero it, save it. Then draw it in, use Cutout to make the helper straps invisible, render image :-) {this is the abbrev. edition}.

 

 

 

 

Mada

You can use the same method to create a strap/polygons connecting the 2 sides, but instead turn it into a dynamic surface add on - then you can use the original outfit and not lose any of the morphs/rigging :)

Catherine3678ab

Mada said:

You can use the same method to create a strap/polygons connecting the 2 sides, but instead turn it into a dynamic surface add on - then you can use the original outfit and not lose any of the morphs/rigging :)

Thank you, that would be a better plan. There is so much to learn in D/S!

Mada

Catherine3678ab said:

Mada said:

You can use the same method to create a strap/polygons connecting the 2 sides, but instead turn it into a dynamic surface add on - then you can use the original outfit and not lose any of the morphs/rigging :)

Thank you, that would be a better plan. There is so much to learn in D/S!

oh yes - and so many different ways to do things too :)

Catherine3678ab

Yes. We had a saying in one group years ago, if there were 39 people in the room - there would 40 opinions available as how to do anything lol ...

The particular dress I'm doodling away on is a WIP, so it was an .obj to begin with. However for those working with existing clothing, here is Mada's video tutorial concerning Add-ons.

Paintbox

You can also use weight mapping, in tools menu add a weight map and paint a weightmap. Red will use dforce a lot, blue and empty not at all.

Mada

That works too - the main difference is if you're adding a weightmap you're basically painting out the dynamic part back to conforming which relies on the JCMs to be spot on.

If you use an add on or the first method in this post to create a new obj, the outfit can be fully dynamic, which means that if you lft the arms up it will settle more naturally instead of the conformed position :)

Catherine3678ab

Success! Was able to get all the main groups back together, single mesh, seams welded and not loose all the uvmaps! That being said, after some more experiments etc., I'm not thinking that this is the best design for using with DForce. More mesh over the shoulders for straps located closer to the neck perhaps.

This dress model was intended to be a heavy velvet cloth, I haven't mastered DForce by a long shot, but this doesn't look like heavy cloth! Silky maybe.

{and one day I'll find where the shoes are hidden}

 

skinklizzard

If you're taking things from MD to daz, one other thing to take note of is the difference in collision offsets they use, MD adds a 3 mm skin offset to the avatar by default and the fabrics have an additional 2.5 mm collision thickness. By default daz has 2mm as the collision offset, often less, so outfits can sag quite a bit. personally I've also found that upping the fps multiplier to 4 keeps outfits looking more like the MD versions.

dForce addons are great though, you can use them as functional fasteners for clasps and buttons too.

Catherine3678ab

That's good to know, thanks. I do have some buttons for that dress lol ...

Mada

The finer the mesh density, the silkier it looks. Taking the mesh density down (larger polygons) will give you a less silky result. That's one of the biggest reasons its hard to make material presets - its tied to the mesh density and a preset that looks great on one mesh will look wrong on a different one if there's a change in density. :)

Faeryl Womyn

I love this thread, I don't have to go through over a 100 pages to find information lol. Thanks heaps for what you both are doing on this thread, it's really helpful.

Catherine3678ab

Made a nasty discovery today, D/S closes Hexagon! If one has sent something over the bridge to Hexagon [i.e. D/S is opening Hexagon] - if one then closed D/S, Hexagon goes "poof." It is in the log file of D/S so yes, it is that D/S is closing Hexagon. :-(  {and yes I've reported this}

Work-a-round is to open Hexagon FIRST, then make anything and send it over the bridge to D/S {i.e. Hexagon is opening D/S}. Then one can load whichever figure/prop they need to in D/S, prepare and select that to send it back over the bridge to that same session of Hexagon. Now one can close D/S and Hexagon stays open.