OK I’m working on a jacket for one of my characters. It’s based upon the standard motorcycle jacket, with some “military” modifications, namely two external breast “flap covered” pockets instead of the single zippered pocket on the right breast. I still need zippers for the main closure and the side pockets though. So the first question is this: How do I make a zipper? Second question: How do I make the “internal” pockets?
Here’s what the jacket is supposed to look like when finished: http://tramp-graphics.deviantart.com/art/Night-Warrior-cover-88476235
Here’s what I have so far:
The only way I’ve found to make a jacket zipper work is to create two narrow planes that stick out of the inner lapel/hem area and transmap them with a zipper texture that has a strong bump map. It takes some trial and error to line them up so the teeth appear to more or less interlock, but it can be done.
The only way I’ve found to make a jacket zipper work is to create two narrow planes that stick out of the inner lapel/hem area and transmap them with a zipper texture that has a strong bump map. It takes some trial and error to line them up so the teeth appear to more or less interlock, but it can be done.
Wow, I’m amazed because that’s how I was going to suggest making it before I read your post! I’m only amazed because I’m a noob!
Sites like the above should be used only for visual inspiration if you’re creating from scratch, not as direct photo sources. Usually you won’t get caught, but it’s still a bad idea. I got my main zipper/fly resource from just photographing clothes that I had. CGTExtures.com and Morguefile.com are both licensed for commercial reuse, and doing a search for zipper on morguefile gets some okay results.
If you’re going to be texturing clothes in the long term, getting a scanner or an okay digital camera is a very good idea. I’ve used a lot of scanned fabrics.
Sites like the above should be used only for visual inspiration if you’re creating from scratch, not as direct photo sources. Usually you won’t get caught, but it’s still a bad idea. I got my main zipper/fly resource from just photographing clothes that I had. CGTExtures.com and Morguefile.com are both licensed for commercial reuse, and doing a search for zipper on morguefile gets some okay results.
If you’re going to be texturing clothes in the long term, getting a scanner or an okay digital camera is a very good idea. I’ve used a lot of scanned fabrics.
I’ve got a 12” x 17” flatbed scanner. Had it for almost nine to ten years, as well as an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier. My original thought was to manually make a full zipper in 3D.
I checked out the two sites, and CGTextures doesn’t have anything, from the search I did, and there’s something wrong with the image links regardless, No pictures are showing at all there, just the little blue “?” boxes signifying broken links.
As for texturing clothes in the long run; for the most part, I use shaders.
Oh good heavens, really? Well, I guess if each tooth is a four-vert cube that might not be prohibitive in terms of poly count, but I would expect smoothing and autoconform to freak out over calculating each of them on a figure in a scene. It would look great but it might be unriggable.
I don’t have that problem at CGTextures (I can see the pics fine) but I didn’t find zippers there, just at Morguefile. I offered it as a good general cloth resource.
Oh good heavens, really? Well, I guess if each tooth is a four-vert cube that might not be prohibitive in terms of poly count, but I would expect smoothing and autoconform to freak out over calculating each of them on a figure in a scene. It would look great but it might be unriggable.
I don’t have that problem at CGTextures (I can see the pics fine) but I didn’t find zippers there, just at Morguefile. I offered it as a good general cloth resource.
Well, that’s why I asked how to make a zipper.
Speaking of the strips, should they overlap one another or butt up against one another?
Oh totally. That’s going to be more work, but it’d certainly give you a good future resource and possibly a very clean transmap if you render to .png.
They need to overlap enough that it looks like the zipper teeth overlap when transmapped. If they were to be a subjective half-inch wide, you would want there to be a quarter-inch overlap or even a little more usually. Then you offset the texture on one side a little from the other so there don’t appear to be gaps visually when they’re “zipped.”
You could model a zipper and use the render as your texture map - then it would be entirely your own original creation:)
And/or even ‘bake’ it as a normal map…
SickleYield - 19 November 2012 04:00 PM
Oh totally. That’s going to be more work, but it’d certainly give you a good future resource and possibly a very clean transmap if you render to .png.
They need to overlap enough that it looks like the zipper teeth overlap when transmapped. If they were to be a subjective half-inch wide, you would want there to be a quarter-inch overlap or even a little more usually. Then you offset the texture on one side a little from the other so there don’t appear to be gaps visually when they’re “zipped.”
Well, I tried actually modelling a 3D zipper, and it turned out alright as long as each half remained perfectly straight. The moment I tried to conform the halves of the zipper to their respective parts of the jacket, major distortion, particularly on the half connected to the left lapel (see attached pic). What can I do to stop that kind of distortion?
