Maya Cloth Solver Headache..

[adamator]

This being my first post...Hey HEY!..alright, down to business.

This is my problem. I'll keep it short and sweet, but I need to give you an idea of the pipeline so hopefully one of you geniouses can help me out here.

I modelled, textured, rigged, skinned, hair sim'd and cloth sim'd in Maya 6.0. A few weeks ago I got a new system, and in the process of upgrading my apps, I installed and continued my work using Maya 7.0.

Before I changed systems I had everything, including my cloth sim and hair sim etc, all done, kinks worked out. The only thing left was to finish up the animation.

NOW...I finished the animation, and from frame 1, with the cloth already modelled and prepared from back in the Maya 6 days..went to run the simulation.

It didn't work. More specifically...(with timeline set to "play all frames"..with my animation that was properly set up to start at fr 40 to allow for proper cloth resting period, with cache deleted, with solver scale and cloth properties properly set), when I would hit play..after the first 5 "relax" frames passed...the simulator would take over naturally and attempt to sim the cloth, but it wouldn't work and jump back a few frames displaying the error message "Difficult solving Cloth, reverting back to earlier frame"

I thought it might be a problem in the conversion of apps, so I deleted all the old work, and reconstructed the clothes from scratch, creating the curves, creating the garment, panels, stiching etc...until it was ready to attempt another sim...but this time, done all in Maya 7.

Exactly the same problem. The 5 frame relax would properly settle the clothes, and the moment the sim would try and run, bang!, it would jump back a few frames with the same error.

Now, just to mention a few things before leaving my faith upto one of you guys or gals...I'll mention a few problems.

-In the process of trying to work out the problem, I have created a few new solvers...I have since, and still can't find out how to delete the extra solvers...eg..when I go into SIMULATION - SOLVERS, and get my drop down list of solvers...I now have 3...Cloth1, Cloth2, Cloth3. I want to delete these altogether and start fresh, but don't know how to, and am having trouble finding them in the Hypergraph. It's just not there.
-Same goes for cloth properties..I have created a few new properties, and can't find the method to delete them.
-Finally, Cloth Collision. I've everytime "removed cloth collision object", namely, the skin of my char. But is this the proper way to delete it? Is there info in the history node that I'm not aware of that needs to be deleted otherwise?

Considering that this problem started before I created new solvers, I'm not sure if this is causing problems. But, it's worth a try if possible.

!! My question is...what's going on? Why won't it solve, and why does it jump back a few frames? Why do I continue to have this problem regardless of the fact that I've recreated the clothes from scratch about 5 times now, with no change. What's the simple solution that's kept me bewildered for the last 56 hours?

Adam

[Jak_Carver]

First off, Im sorry that I cannot provide a solution for. Sometimes the native Maya cloth simulator cannot simulate certain situations, I have seen this happen myself. In general, the Maya cloth simulator is not good. It just is not a high quality cloth simulator. I strongly suggest that you look into Syflex; it is extremely powerful and has no trouble simulating tough cloth setups that Maya's cloth just cant handle on its best day. Since you already purchased Maya Unlimited, it prob wont be a problem acquiring the Syflex plugin for it as it's worth it. I have worked with Syflex in the past as well as Maya's cloth simulator and from experience, I can say that Maya's cant even come close to the level of complexity and robustness that Syflex offers. As for your problem deleting solvers, there should be a menu item in the cloth module for deleting them, I remember I used to use it often when I used to work with Maya cloth back in Maya 6. Pretty sure I have also seen it in version 7, have another look; you know how Maya is with it's menu system setup the way it is. Good luck and I hope you resolve your problem.

[papa]

An easy way to clear out solvers is to delete them using a bit of mel.

Make sure the solver is not used in your scene and just type in

delete cpSolver2

Remember to use the correct name but if haven't renamed them then you will see them in order under Simulation>Solvers in the Cloth menu set.

The cloth solver is a very powerful solver and it is very useful if you cache out your files. You can create a similar workflow like Syflex where you simulate a lower resolution object and then smooth out your geometry at render time.

The problem happening from creating new solvers wouldn't the the case since it disconnects the connections to any other solver in your system. I am not sure what the problem is since the cloth system is the same since v. 2 If this is a production issue then I would re-install maya 6 and finalize your meshes and bake them out for importing.

Good luck with your project,
Papa