Hey, thanks for the reply.
From the Maya documentation, the "Start Simulation" button in the "Simulation" menu is almost the exact same as pressing the time forward button on the time slider as far as the cloth solver is concerned. The only difference is that if you click the "Simulation -> Start Simulation" menu item, any animation on the collision objects does not occur. Only the cloth solver's time is advanced, and not the global "time1" node.
The answer to your question, however, is that I'm using the "Simulation -> Start Simulation" menu item to initially drape my cloth. My process occurs in the following manner:
[] Create curves to form my panels
[] Create panels from my curves
[] Create garment from one panel
[] Seam other panels to garment
[] Click "Simulation -> Start Simulation"
I do the last step and then undo it a bunch of times, each time adjusting the cloth properties to get the desired behavior. This works for a while, until all of the sudden, the cloth stops responding (i.e. doesn't do anything at all) when I click the "Simulation -> Start Simulation" menu item. Refer to my original post for the errors that occur.
Again, thanks for the reply, Joseffects, and I would greatly appreciate any help if anyone has any ideas.
This has happened on multiple machines with different hardware configurations. I'm using Maya 4.0.
-Josh