Let’s Make Clothing! Tutorial thread. Shoes too!
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I haven't tried using the specific modeling programs you've mentioned for making clothing.
.obj files are imported into D/S ... some are read better than others when it comes to the .mtl files. I don't tend to worry about the .mtl part* as once loaded, we can texture the item as required and save out the file as prop or figure with it looking correct.
* one does have to tell D/S to read the .mtl file on import
Love that! However having seen an image as to the size of what's coming, don't think that's going to be much help.
Working on the transformation angle myself lol ...
Hexagon is often used because of the bridge and of course it's sold by the same company here, for morphing.
Models that have too many triangles or 5+ "dots" tend to cause problems.
Making clothes in 4.x is super easy for a lot of "basic" items.
One imports the .obj file in such a fashion for it to land on Genesis at the correct size/placement. Transfer the bones over. Save the file. Done. Make mats, morphs, etc as desired.
As to complaints, welcome to the Daz Forums. There are so many people that come by, there's always somebody available to complain about something. Some of us complain louder and/or more often than others. When lines are crossed action is taken. I started this thread, as many had done/have done/will do, as a tutorial line for a topic. Somebody complained that it wasn't just a .pdf file. I made a few .pdf files and somebody got pretty snarky about my grammar or lack thereof [said person not having a clue how to do any of this said he was going to make tutorials which we all have yet to see signs of] and somebody got rather nasty and okay ... I am woman, can be emotional and have temper tantrums too ... took down my tutorials ... then people complained about that ... but some very nice people also requested and provided verbal support so okay, I put some back ... something else happened ... oh yes ... man I get tired of people trying to kill me ... so think we're back at the "I'm making some more and if I live long enough hope to publish them" 's**n' ... that being a word which is not to written in full in these forums 'cause ...
As to the size of images ... when one goes to post an image in here, there are size suggestions, the forum software will now resize the pics automatically for proper display. If one wants to see the original uploaded image, click on the picture and it opens in a new window. This is a site that sells 3D models and software; imagery is rather important.
So feel free to post images about clothing models that you're working on too! Feel free to ask questions. I do not know all the answers ... but hopefully somebody might and respond.
..................................
@ all ... is anybody working on clothing items for 4arms?
Hi Patience,
I'm a newbie to DAZ but not to raytracing. I remember writing POV files...
I'm a doctor of physics, spawned from an engineer/artist over the years and a dude as well. I'm sure we both have a lot of right answers in our various specialized areas. I hesitate to get to in depth, here, beyond the subject. I imagine DAZ prefers to keep the forums on a more academic level. The mentioned site is a 1st amendment respectful place, seeing that I'm in the US of A, so much is tolerated. I can make invisible forums too.
Anyway...
That triangles issue is important, or even quad meshes. I wonder why we haven't simply resorted to soccer ball (Bucky Ball) geodesics. It's just another edge and vertex. As for dots you mean decimal points?
What works best for DAZ? quads or triangles? From the math level, every spline generates a possibly infinite number of spherical, or even simply radial, vertices and tangent data. The computer can only run a finite number of them, still the decimal places are like 10 ^ +/- 497. How the program uses that capacity is decided by many factors, including a trade off of speed for quantity.
I noticed that Hex had a bug in this and another thread. Every time I get that Windows area it is because my program threw an exception error. This almost always traces, in a graphics program, to a missing "freemem" type of statement to match the [allocate memory] part of an internal routine that handles the graphics math to represent the face on the screen in proper perspective. It could also be from stack overflow. That can be either the program or your machine. It could be a math error, usually somewhere a modulo division routine is trying to convert a decimal quantity into an integer. Oil and water...
I usually skip the debug process and go to "Find and Replace" in my editor, find an entry memory allocation, then scroll down to see if it also has the free memory statement and if it matches the [programming lingo] constructor and it's path if necessary.
I really put the programmer advice there for the DAZ developers to consider.
Beyond that, I'll give the suggestions here a whirl. Thanx.
Usually quads are best, but triangles are acceptable provided the angle is not overly oblique (if you use them near a corner you will get visual artifacts on render). The latest version of Studio even renders n-gons pretty well, but it's best to use them sparingly and only where specifically needed; I've used them to make jewels (pictured) and so forth and had them turn out all right.
Nice work!
When thinking artificial, as in woven cloth, as you're depicting, you're probably right. N-gons must handle more triangles... somewhere. Triangles will create more splines in a blended surface and somewhere the angles grow incredibly small, as Patience implied. We keep looking at trade-offs... somewhere.
In many respects I'm not ready to do cloth just yet. I really need to learn more about the transfer routines, as mentioned above. Any good threads on that?
Interesting jewelry. Brings to mind a RL photo ... actually there was a whole book of them ... of um, hmm ... let's just body piercings ... would require a few body morphs for the stretched skin ... but iz not my zhing.
{Is that a preview per chance? If so, a Star in the centre of the the forehead would kool.}
edit: Hay! Your store is on sale :-)
Interesting jewelry. Brings to mind a RL photo ... actually there was a whole book of them ... of um, hmm ... let's just body piercings ... would require a few body morphs for the stretched skin ... but iz not my zhing.
{Is that a preview per chance? If so, a Star in the centre of the the forehead would kool.}
It's a product at Rendo that's a few months old now. Maybe I should've done a forehead star, it would've sold better...
It's a product at Rendo that's a few months old now. Maybe I should've done a forehead star, it would've sold better...
That's why I missed it ... yes, well maybe one sale anyway ... I know, I can make a star ... but time you know ... Some years back a star appeared on my forehead. I always thought it was kinda neat. Somedays very visible, other days not so much. Some people saw it so well they stared at it ... others staring at a plainly visible star would claim they saw nothing. Strange world we are in. 5 points, like the Bethlehem Star.
Sadly the programmers seldom read the forums ... certainly aren't obligated to. There is a way to get information to the company via the Contact Us options however development for Hexagon is 'resting indefinitely' for the time being. Old coding, lots of bugs. Lots were fixed for this release, but it's rather like fixing the plumbing.
Sorry, the guys in the Hexagon forum rib me sometimes ... dot/dots = vertice/vertex/vertices
Unlike many people around here, I'm learning about 3D stuff 'the hard way'. My hobby for now.
Yes Hexagon has memory issues. That's a good part of why I make some of the suggestions I do in my tutorials for modeling with Hexagon. Tips to keep it from crashing. I love the interface for Hexagon. It's more user friendly than several I've tried.
I agree, Quads are best.
I like how you put that paragraph. Yes. Daz3d likes us to say nice things about their products. Don't know about the academic part. And no, not all forums in the USA hold to freedom of speech. This is a store forum. So basically if one thinks like "if one was in a real store, what type of conversations are tolerated and for how long ..." and it usually works for me. For the record, I have talked in real stores to real clerks about all kinds of things from knives to aliens. That latter was fun. Young trainee in some special program trying to impress the gals and customers in the store ... hehehe ... oh I had fun. Told him of a few experiences and he turned a new shade of white.
Invisible forums?! wow ... thought everything on the Internet was findable. I've, quite innocently, managed to find myself inside people's email accounts, private health records, and an inside page of deep dark secret ... haven't a clue which cult ... pages ... and one time found a long list of EVERY email a particular individual had emailed out to his mailing list. And then there's the fact that the entire net goes through a particular company's computer. And encrypting pages just makes them more attractive.
Okay, 'bout time to repost some of the useful links:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/start
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/rigging/start
Rigging a Skirt for Genesis
Morphing a Skirt for Genesis
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And here are a few products which I have bought and do recommend.
They provide good information about the content creation tools, donor rig, how to use the weight map brush, etc.
They do go on sale from time to time ;-)
http://www.daz3d.com/rigging-original-figures-in-ds4-pro
http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-rigging-in-daz-studio-4-pro
http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-basic-clothing-rig-kit
And just in case anybody is really wanting a cape but is not up to trying to rig their own ... or for some ideas on how to rig one perhaps there is this one for only $1.99 PC price.
http://www.daz3d.com/super-cape-for-genesis
texture set: http://www.daz3d.com/hero-vs-anti-hero
My objective is to learn to do all these daring feats on my own. I feel obligated to feed some of the starving artists and programmers...
I'll see about doing some shopping this coming month. It isn't that people don't want to buy, it's that the global economy is still sluggish at best.
Yeah, a lot of people out of work :-(
My good shopping tonight ... finally got CarraraPro under $100 :-)
As I understand from what I've read, it does a little of everything but a totally different way of going about things.
@ anybody
If I might suggest as a good beginner clothing mesh: short skirt. Requires no handles.
Can start with a cylinder, a circle line, or a vertical line ...
A few more pics.
btw - Hexagon is on at 1/2 price atm.
These are not the images from the upcoming tutorial but the subject is similar, a short skirt.
This is basically a very brief guide to "make something" into a clothing item.
From my laptop, this is being done using Hexagon and D/S4.5
Isn't this fun.
Free skirt!
And the last set for now.
This set covered very basically all the way from "making the mesh" to "metadata". All steps were not illustrated.
The tutorial .pdf I'm working on is more comprehensive but atm is not covering the metadata.
Very nice basics tutorial Patience. Thanks so much for your advice and tutorials! :-)
You're welcome. Hope they help us keep some hair!
Did you begin in Blender? The first screen-post appeared as such.
I'll certainly give all that a whirl. I'd like to solve the hair issue... mine and in DAZ. ;)
Pretty sure she uses Hex.
It sounds like a plug-in is available for hair. Quite a few point me toward Blender and I've even had someone point me away from Hex. I plan to get it, but have to get around to transferring funds to my net account and I'm admittedly slow about that, so sales sometimes pass me by. I'm a very busy fellow, too. I take a break from empirical work and home improvement periodically, so catch up on the computer work between mills and drills and swings of the hammer. I see that most of what she has above was Hex, but the one screen had me wondering.
I was pointed to this thread and find it one to bookmark. Right now, as I implied earlier, it's enough just to learn d-formers efficiently.
I did try using the transfer utility to add morphs to some of the existing clothes in the Essentials package. They still cut through the morphs on the modified Genesis, so I must be doing something wrong.
Pretty sure she uses Hex.
I yi I yi ... bbbb .... never. okay I did manage to find one computer it would work on and all I have ever used it for was to convert .blend file to .obj and export. that's IT.
I use Hexagon. Both the latest and the previous release [on separate computers].
There are those who LOVE Blender and yes Blender can be used to make clothing. Blender can do a lot of things.
As somebody else put it ... if you have 5 years to learn the interface. I don't.
I have found I like the interface with Hexagon just fine.
What many, including myself, think would be great is if one could get the interface of Hexagon together with all those neat things that Blender can do.
However, if one takes the time, there are a lot of things that Hexagon can do. It might have a different name for the procedure; it might require a lot of time and patience figuring out what caused the crash and "don't do that again" behaviour ... but some very nice items have indeed been produced using Hexagon.
update on the .pdf tutorial ... in the final proof reading stage ... and a btw, I use a couple of programs which apparently have spell check and do not spell the words 'modeler' 'modeling' 'modeller' 'modelling' the same. Possibly a language difference but as fighting auto spell checks is not my cup of tea ... those words appear 'as is'.
The 2 new hair plug-ins are for D/S4.5 and are sold in the Daz3d store.
As I recall it's Zbrush that has a feature for modeling out 'hair'.
I find it simpler and safer to use those prepaid gift credit cards. Loss some pennies of course as they nickel and dime out but still.
D-formers ... are used to make morphs yes, but not with the Transfer Utility. There is a page or two in that Wiki section about using D-formers. Went great until the how to save part. That's when and where and why I figured out the "how to save Little Morphs".
Little frazzled right now ... but I think the idea was to use the D-former, spawn the morph, ship it to Hexagon, ship it back, create the morph, save the morph.
As to a copy of Hexagon ... just a minute ...
edit: strange ... they seemed to have left up a LEGAL free Hexagon for mac users, but not windows. oh well ...
D-Forms: Saving out a morph. You have to first select the top of the item you created a morph for. So say it's a sweater but your creating a morph for the Chest area. When you done select the main Sweater. Then in the D-Form dialog make sure you have the appropriate bits checked off:
Create Root Control Parameter
Delete Applied D-Former(s)
Apply Spawned Morph.
I always check off the first option. Only check off the other two if your absolutely positive that it's a total "go".
Then click the "Spawn Morph" button and name the morph. Save out the updated Sweater with the new morph info embedded or you can save out the Morph info separately:
File> Save As> Support Asset> Morph Asset(s) and your done.
Thanks RAMWolff. It's been awhile since I did those.
HU - for anyone who hasn't browsed the forums. Don't let the title overly concern you ... this script has huge potential for adding movement to morphs.
Thread to watch
Page to Visit.
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Making Clothing to share. Packaging it up correctly is rather nice to do however items must be created with the source files having been in their correct places first. This enables the created file to be correct for the filepaths it'll search for its parts and makes packaging it up for a share so much easier.
I remember the first textures I shared out ... just the .jpgs!
Gleaned some experience and learned to package for the Runtime.
Now we have a Runtime and the "My Library" to consider.
This is not comprehensive, but a very general guideline to hopefully help beginners find their way.
Runtime > Geometry > YourHandle > YourProject > the .obj files
Runtime > textures > YourHandle > YourProject > the .jpg and/or .png files
Runtime > libraries > Character > YourHandle > YourProject/Character/etc the .cr2 files are created saved to here.
Double check that the saved pathways start at "Runtime/whatever"
Then one packages up a copy of all the above and zips them up with a Readme ;-)
Clothing items for Genesis are .duf files [or in 4.0 .dsf files]
And for those to work all items really must be in their correct places first.
And saved to their correct places.
And named correctly too.
My Library > People > Genesis > Clothing > Either YourHandle and/or then The Product > the .dsf or .duf files and icons
My Library > data > Your Handle/Project [relates with options chosen when you make the files] > whatever folders and content are created
My Library > Runtime > textures > YourHandle > YourProject > the .jpg and/or .png files
And kindly do not compress the files so on the offhand chance that the file can't find its texture, for eg., then we have a chance to find it and/or edit the file so it can find it. Thank you.
And once again, then everything copied in the appropriate folders [just your stuff though for the share, NOT all the content in there lol ...] and zipped up with a Readme.
A readme is required by those doing commercial work stating that they may [or not] use your work in commercial renders.
Hay! There's another modeler in here: And it's on sale atm.
Has anybody tried this program? Pegasus Modeler
I've just bought it bit I can't find a download button on this new layout they have so I can't try it out yet!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well I got it downloaded but I can't get the serial number accepted now, so got to wait for either Daz or the creator to get back to me!
K...
Lots of things to think about. I have a d-former query in DAZ discussions and there have been a number of pointers, including spawning morphs and saving them to the object as a morph asset via file/save-as/support assets/morph assets...
Yea, IIRC the creator of Pegasus and other great products does have a weird code input thing. Looks tempting though so if folks get it figured out and it's fabu maybe I'll get it... although I would hope that I could figure out how to get basic stuff from there to ZBrush, as in a bridge.