Poser 11: How to get the most out of Poser's dynamic clothing

Jun 03, 2020 at 10:00 am by Michelle Willard

Poser 11 Tutorial: How to get the most out of dynamic clothing

Poser's Cloth Room allows you to create realistic cloth that behaves like real fabric. The Cloth Room tools help you create cloth that responds realistically when animated.

But how does it work?

To start, Poser has two types of clothing, conforming clothing and dynamic clothing. The main difference between the two is that dynamic clothing is manipulated in the Cloth Room.

Conforming clothing is poseable, just like a human or animal figure. It is typically designed for a specific figure but, when conforming clothing is “attached” (or conformed) to the figure, it automatically bends and poses along with the character that wears the clothing.

Dynamic clothing, on the other hand, adds incredible realism to your scenes by causing cloth objects to move as they would in real life. Dynamic cloth allows for realistic draping and wrinkles. For example, your tablecloth will drape over a table or a flowing skirt will move as a figure walks.

Dynamic cloth objects require increased computing resources beyond those of conforming clothing. Items such as socks, bikinis, or tights don't need to be dynamic since in real life these types of clothing tend to be close-fitting with little to no room for independent motion. You should generally use conforming clothing for these situations because it requires fewer computing resources.

But if you want to add realism to your renders, Renderosity vendor Frequency, aka, Ylva Grefberg, has created a set of tutorials that will teach Poser users the ins and outs of Dynamic clothing in Poser.

"Dynamic clothing has so much potential, but there is a bit of a learning curve if you are new to the subject," Frequency said from her hometown of Linköping, Sweden.

"I do feel Dynamic clothing is very beautiful and that it offers so many exciting possibilities," she said.

Frequency said she often gets questions about Dynamic versus conforming clothing, which is what led to the tutorial series.

"With this in mind, we thought that the best thing would be to start from the very beginning and really get into the basics," she said.

All tutorial resources, including PDFs of all the tutorials are available in Renderosity's Free Stuff section


Introduction to Dynamics in Poser

In the introduction, Frequency creates a cloth simulation by draping cloth over a cube. She also gives a comparison between conforming and dynamic clothing before moving on to create a simple cloth simulation using a plane and a cube.

Lesson 2: Simple Clothing Simulation

Frequency demonstrates basic clothing simulation with a figure, using Victoria 4 and a long top. You can follow along using Pauline as well.

Lesson 3: Basic Layering

Frequency demonstrates simple layering, using a top and a skirt. She also explains learn how to set up multiple collision objects.

Lesson 4: Troubleshooting I - Fixing Poses

Frequency goes through some examples of how to fix posing issues for cloth simulation. Hand poses and hip rotations are things that often need to be adjusted.

Lesson 5: Working with Sitting Poses

Frequency explains how to create a basic sitting pose simulation, using a cube and a new, ankle-length skirt. She uses pose and prop adjustment tricks to optimize the animation for a static render. 
Sections: Tutorials