angeloi oversleeves
I think I often bite off more than I can chew. 
But anyway... I am working through the Dforce tutorial on dynamic flow for the Angeloi oversleeves. I have a zillion questions and nothing is working like it should. I have been working my way through Dforce tutorials, but it's far from intuitive. I've done the read-me files and I'm drawing some blanks.
First, these sleeves have an iray icon next to them when selected for parameters. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but assume they are "special" because there seems to be no way to manually drape them. They merge into the scene in a huge tulip shape and they stay that way. When you move the character to the final pose for the cloth simulation, it's hellish trying to reposition those tulip sleeves and get them right, and because they can't be moved separately, it seems like you have to choose a pose where the arms are pointed so they will be in a straight line. The tutorial is really intensive and lists every possible switch that needs to be toggled (well, I guess so - there are a lot), and I've done every single one. But the sleeves just move as big tulips. There is just no draping happening. Sadly, in the tutorial, the trainer opted to show us the final pose without the sleeves so that it would be easier to see. I feel it would have been easier if I could see what he did to those sleeves.
And is dforce the only way that these oversleeves will ever be able to drape? You can't manually move them at all, like you can with other big sleeves? Is that what the little iray icon seems to be telling me?
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The Angeloi overskirt and sleeves were made as Poser dynamic cloth items, not intended for use in for DAZ Studio, but I know several people have tried using them with dForce so I believe it should work.
Where are you seeing an Iray icon exactly? The only thing at all like that that I see is in my Content Library under
Poser Formats - <whatever-your-installation-is> - Pose - AK_SF Angeloi
and is actually a scroll symbol (a bit like a stylised "S") which denotes that there are DS materials provdided.
Is this the tutorial you are trying to follow? https://thinkdrawart.com/daz-studio-dynamic-cloth-dforce-tutorial-for-beginners
At what point exactly does it all go wrong?
By an Iray icon do you mean a cube? That indicates a prop, rather than a posable figure, which is how items made for Poser dynamic clothing generally load. It should probably be possible to use them in dForce, you'd need to apply the dForce Dynamic modifier (from the Simulation Settings pane option menu), then you'd need to pin them in place at the top (if there's already some kind of trim surface you could simply give it a dynamic strength of zero, otherwise you'd either need to use the Geometry Editor tool to create a new surface of the top loop for that or you'd need to use a weight map), then you'd have to do a play range simulation from a pose that fitted inside the sleeves to your final pose. Is this what the tutorial is doing, or is it a Poser tutorial?
OK, so maybe I'm just way off base using them in DAZ. I don't have Poser. I can look into it. I did use the Dforce modifier, as the tutorial suggested, and set the dynamic strength to 0. It is a DAZ tutorial from ThinkDrawArt. It seems to be for DAZ, but confusingly the author references Poser from time to time.
https://thinkdrawart.com/daz-studio-dynamic-cloth-dforce-tutorial-for-beginners
It just honestly does not seem to work for me.
By Iray icon, I mean it's a cube icon that looks like the one when iray is selected in the view panel.
I really appreciate your help. DAZ is (to me) not very intuitive.
Unfortunately, to me it seems a little bit deceptive to sell a product as "compatible" with DAZ studio, knowing that it really only works for draping in Poser, and that DAZ folks will only ever be able to really use it in T-pose - and even then it will look weird. Still, if I have to pay $300 for Poser and learn a new system, then I'll just sacrifice the $21 I've already spent and chalk it up to learning. Also unfortunately, you don't get the read-me files until you buy the product, so there's no way to really know this beforehand. Not to mention I've spent two days working on it unproductively. Sorry. I'm a bit frustrated right now.
Oh, don't give up yet! I'm just running a dForce Simulation using the oversleeves and that tutorial (it's taking a few minutes) and I'll post the result as soon as it's done.
Which figure are you using for your attempt? I'm using a basic G8F. Make sure you posed her in a T-pose (so that the sleeves more-or-less fit over her forearms when you start at frame 1). Then make sure that the oversleeves are parented to the upper chest as the tutorial recommends (mine loaded parented elsewhere). Expand the figure in the Scene tab so you can see upper chest and drag the oversleeves there, or right-click the oversleeves and chenge parent to her upper chest.
No need to move the sleeves at all when you put the final pose on the figure. I suggest that for you first attempt you make sure she remains at position x0-z0-y0 - I'm not sure what happens if you move her across the floor.
Then the animated drape (explained fairly clearly in the tutorial I think) will keep the oversleeves attached when her arms move.
In my example I just posed the arms - you may like to start simple too, then once it's working for you try something more complex.
If you set dynamic strength of a surface to 0 then that surface will not behave as dynamic cloth.
What you need to do is set the strength to 0 on the top hem of the sleeves only, so that the hem of the sleeves doesn’t move (otherwise the sleeves will slide from the arms), but give a non-zero strength to the rest of the sleeves.
I can't get this to work on these oversleeves, Leana - if I do that then the top hem (called "Constrained" in the surfaces tab presumably for ease of use in the Poser Cloth Room) stays dangling in mid-air instead of moving with the arms. The oversleeves are props, not fit to the figure. Here's what I mean on a V4 figure.
I think they'd need to be fitted with the transfer utility then
You need to parent each sleeve to the corresponding V4 upper arm if you want them to follow the pose.
It's a single prop called Oversleeves, which contains both left and right.
The tutorial works pretty well in a simple pose just by parenting to the upper chest. I'm going to try a more complex example, but an animated drape takes quite a while on my PC.
ETA: OK, so here's G8F in a flying pose and a sitting pose. I removed the dress which wouldn't coform to well with either pose so she's in her underwear. In both cases this is exactly following the method described in the tutorial. I added a plane (100 divisions) to the sitting pose to catch the sleeves - note that the right arm works pretty well, but the left arm slides down the arm, as Leana noted might happen. I also coloured them with one of the texture sets from an Angeloi expansion pack.
Sorry, I thought there were 2 props, and I had missed MelanieL’s post so my answer didn’t really help.
The method she described seems to work pretty well.
What I suggested would probably work too if you load the sleeves prop twice and hide one sleeve of each, in order to have independent sleeves.
MelanieL I really appreciate it and I’ll try again. I did have the sleeves parented correctly. They jusT did not move at all in the simulation. But I’ll give it another try. And I do appreciate your help.
Update - I have achieved DRAPING! Whoo-hoo. However... the sleeves are not sticking with her arms. It's the same thing that happened above. I do have the dynamic strength set to 0 as the tutorial suggests. Must be something around that issue that's failing. Ideas?
If the Dynamic Strength is zero the the areas will not drape, they will keep their existing relationship to the body part theya re parented to. I would either use two sleeves, hiding half of each (if possible), or do a simple rig with the transfer Utility, or use the Geometry Editor to split the model into separate parts for each sleeve (which can then each be aprented to the upper arm they go with).
You can’t put the sleeves in separately as the are only one prop. However I might do two renders - one for each side - and blend in photoshop post. It’s all I can think of to do.
Alisa
select Victoria 4
go to edit tab at the top and select under rigging convert to weightmapping
it can be triax or general weights it doesn't matter, its just a temporary measure so you can fit the sleeves
now bring up the transfer utility under edit figure
and choose V4 as source the sleeves as the target, ignore any dialogues just fit them
you now can drape them with the top band at zero simulation and they will follow her arms
That's why I suggested loading two sleeves and hiding opposite arms on both, or splitting the model into two using the Geometry Editor.
I can try that, certainly - I appreciate the idea. I haven't ever used the geometry editor, but know my way around Photoshop fairly well. I'm mostly a photo compositor, and will be using this as a stand-alone png with other sets, so hiding the arms in the actual render is less important, as I can mask them down the road.
Actually the tutorial only says to set Dynamic Strength to 0 for the overskirt top, not the sleeves top. Leave the sleeves at the default (1) and try your drape again?