Well the render i was talking about was the "give the cloth time to get into place before you start rig movement" stuff. I an lazy by nature, I can't wait for the cloth to settle down
Actually the ponytail is dynamic, at least till I actually start venturing into hair/particles. But yes I solved the problem. I found this undocumented (as far as I can tell) keyboard shortcut that controls an unreachable (as far as I can tell) setting via a menu of any sort. <SHIFT>8 Aparently it turns off dynamic collisions???
I tried that. But I got a lot of errors. My brain tells me that if i put a deflector (apparently unrelated to specific cloth groups) on a cloth object, it will always be hitting itself. Haven't tried lately but, I think that is why I had CP's shooting off in all kinds of directions. In my tests, cloth objects sense each other because they are being simulated at the same time, whereas they do not take into account dynamic contraints that would act differently at a fast render speed. At this point I have ONE cloth material applied to ALL three cloth objects(each with different attach groups). The trick is getting the collision radius and the anchor groups to equate out to what you are looking for. So far I am running her at 0.5 collision. Less than that, it get hung up on her leg, and more than that makes her look like she if wearing a prom dress.
I will post more test later...thanks for feedback!