Noob question about Mesh Smoothing Iterations

N00b4Ever

Hi all,

I have a noob question mostly out of curiosity than anything else as i don't think I can use your answers for anything other than learning a bit more about the program.

I've notice that the smoothing iterations effectiveness varies per product. For example sometimes the default value of 2 is enough to fix any poke. Other times removing and re-adding the mesh smoothing for a product that already comes with it also improves the poking issues. However, there are some products where you can remove/re-add or increase the smoothing iterations to 10000000000 and there is barely any change from a value of 2. 

I'm guessing that depends on how many compatible characters morphs the artist used to create the outfit... Does that make sense? Are there any other reasons?

Also, (this I can actually apply any learnings) what's the difference between the smotthing and collision iterations? And which one should I increase first or should I increase them at the same time? When I increase the collisions I don't always see a benefit so I barely use it. And DAZ takes longer to refresh.

Anyways thanks in advance for your answers.

Cheers.

jestmart

I have found that it is usually the clothing not having enough polygon density to curve well with the morph shape.  Switch to Wire Shaded view to check.  By the way increasing Sub-d level on the clothing usually doesn't help as calculations are done from the base mesh level.

Richard Haseltine

I assume you are asking about the collision iterations, which are separate from smoothing itself. Not every mesh can be smoothed over every shape, especially if Base Shape Matching is on which can fight the collision detection/projected morphs (it may be worth trying generic mode instead) or if the bump it is trying to cover is in an area of the covering item that has no vertices to move.

Frinkky

I find if you need to go above 5 iterations, you're better off adding subd if it isn't already added (even if the smoothing modifier technically only works from the base mesh, the added smoothness from subd can help) and/or a push modifier with a distance of something small, like 0.05 give or take 0.03. As an aside, 10000000000 iterations would take a (very) long time to process which is why you didn't notice any difference.

N00b4Ever

Thanks all for your replies. I've never used subD or the push modifier for fixing pokes. I'll see how it goes. 

Yeah the refreshment time when you use a high value for the smoothing is quite long. I can see the bar at the bottom right loading but even after completion I don't see a significant improvement. Obviously a value of 1000000000 is an exageration but I've tried up to 100 with no luck in certain cases.

Cheers.

PerttiA

High SubD on the character can also cause pokethrough that can be difficult to solve.

One trick I have often used, is to use the morphs on the figure to fix issues on the clothing.

Whenever clothing or hair is fitted to a figure, autofollow transfers the morphs that are used on the figure to the clothing. These transferred morphs are set hidden on the clothing, but if you enable "Show Hidden Properties" the dials can be used to change the clothing.
If you don't find a suitable morph within the ones that had been used on the figure, you can transfer more morphs from the figure on to the clothing by setting the value of morph dials on the figure to something like 0.01 and that morph will be transferred to the clothing.

I have found this very usefull, especially when trying to get hairs to fit on characters.

N00b4Ever

Coincidentialy I was playing around with the hidden properties this weekend as I was doing some assessment on the Umbra Outfit by Herschel. I noticed some morphs being used. It didn't occour to me I could use those hidden parameters to reduce poke-throughs.

I get so annoyed with the hair when the Iray preview is fine but when you render you have those black spots all over the forehead or sides.... so annoying!

Anyways, thanks for the advice.

Cheers.