As Maya's manual on cloth lacks a comprehensive description of the production workflow for an animation using cloth, I hoped someone might be able to verify/correct my proposed workflow.
1) model character's body and all collision objects (shoes, watch, etc.)
2) design cloth with curves, create panels and stitch garment
3) simulate cloth...adjust properties...resimulate...adjust...until generally pleased with how cloth falls
4) save initial cloth state of garment
5) tweak vertices to refine shape of garment then update cloth state
6) setup body for animation (skeleton, deformers, etc.)
7) hide cloth and animate character, allowing 30 frames or so at beginning of scene for cloth to solve
8) show cloth, enable solver, and play animation within scene looking for interpenetration or other problems
9) adjust vertices to correct problems and update cloth state at each frame where correction is made
10) render animation
Not having made it through all these steps, I have no firsthand knowlege of whether this is the proper workflow or not. To rescue me from the path of error and to prevent the dangerous spread of heresy please modify, add to, and flesh out this feeble attempt at a workflow skeleton for cloth users. Thanks.
ATaC