How to Do a Basic Dynamic Cloth Simulation in Poser Pro

When attempting to generate realistic CGI images, one of the most important things is your ability to create realistic looking cloth. Part of the formula for making the cloth you have on any object or figure look realistic is, of course, the texture, including the texture map, the bump map, and all the other channel settings. But even with the best textures in the world, conforming clothing (and any other cloth that is modeled to appear to have folds) simply can't pass close scrutiny without being recognized for what it is. It always looks a bit clunky and blocky at best (especially in animation) and armor-like at worst. What is the alterative? Dynamic Cloth. In this tutorial, I will be showing you the very basics of how a dynamic cloth simulation works in Poser Pro.

First, you need to start Poser Pro. Then you select the default figure you have in the scene and click delete. When Poser asks you if you really want to delete the figure, click yes. Now, go to the library panel on the right, and then go to Props. Under Primitives, you will see a simple Cube. Double-click on it, and it will load into the scene, as you can see in image one. The Cube will be the solid object your cloth will react against in the simulation. You will notice in image one that in the Parameter Dials, I increased the scale of the Cube to 300 percent. It makes it easier to see. This isn't really necessary, but I don't like to move the cameras when doing any animation (and cloth simulation is animation) unless it is planned as a part of the animation.

Next, you want to create a simple cloth object for your scene. Go again to the Primitives, and double-click on the Square Hi-Res. You want to make sure you use the Hi-Res version here, since the basic one doesn't have the polygons you need for the simulation. As you can see in image two, I have again gone to the Parameter Dials and changed the scale, this time to 75 percent. I have also changed the yTran setting to 3.5, which places the cloth just above the cube.

Now go to the Room Tabs at the top, and click on Cloth. This brings you into the Cloth Room, where you can set up all the parameters for the simulation. As you can see, in image three, when you click on the New Simulation button, a new dialogue opens, which gives you a chance to name the simulation, set the frame range, define how to cloth collides, and so on. Leave all these on their default settings for now, and click OK. Now click on the Clothify button, and the next dialogue lets you which object should be made into cloth. When it comes up, it should already list the cloth plane, but if it doesn't, select it and click OK.

Next, you click the Collide Against button. As seen in image four, you are presented with another dialogue that lets you tell Poser what you want the cloth object to collide against. At present, nothing is selected, so click on Add/Remove, and check the box next to box_1. If your cloth were large enough that it might drape to the floor, you might also want to click on the box next to Ground. Leave the other settings as they are and click OK. Now, click Calculate Simulation. The result of this can be seen in image five. The full abilities of the Poser Cloth Room are beyond the scope of this tutorial, and are best discovered by practice with the various settings.