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dForce Influence Tutorial — Description

So, you've found/made your perfect off the shoulder item and want to use it with dForce. It's got just the right amount of wrinkles. You've set up your perfect pose in the timeline and clicked on Simulate. And of course, there's a wardrobe malfunction! And to top it all off, your beautiful wrinkles are gone! If that's your goal, then why are you still reading this? You're done! However, if you like a little more modesty from your models, fear not! There is a solution! It comes in the form of a dForce Influence Weight Map.

1. If you don't already have a Tool Settings Tab in your workspace, navigate to Window>Panes (Tabs)>Tool Settings. Dock this somewhere in your workspace, you'll need it later. Within the Tool Settings tab, select Node Weight Map Brush as the Active Tool.

2. Select your dForce item and click Create and select New dForce Modifier Weight Node. Give your new node a descriptive name and click Accept. The default name is fine for the tutorial, but it's a good idea to get into the habit of descriptive naming.

3. In the Tool Settings Weight Maps Tab, click on Add Map next to dForce Simulation::Influence Weights. This will create a new weight map for editing. It should auto-select the influence map, but if it doesn't, just click on it to see the map displayed in your Viewport.

4. Now comes the real work. Editing the weight map. Removing weight from the areas you don't want to take part in the simulation. You can spend a lot of time fiddling during this step. Adjusting where the map starts and ends, varying degrees of influence, etc. The basics you'll need are pretty simple. Holding Alt (probably Option on a Mac) while Left Click/Dragging will remove the weights. Just Left Click/Dragging (without Alt) will add the weights.

5. I usually add a "buffer zone" to ease the transition between the simulated and conforming cloth. For this you'll want to lower the sensitivity of the brush to keep the weights light. Once you're satisfied with your new weight map, navigate to your Simulation Settings tab and run your simulation.

6. Enjoy your newly found awesomeness!

There are several more maps to further tweak your dForce simulation to produce different results in your simulation. For now, feel free to apply the concepts here to the other maps and play around with the results!