WIP dress - what now?
Ashfire45
Posts: 126
"Oh God, not Ashfire again", I hear you cry. And I agree whole heartedly. :p However, I find that my momentum with my first project has stopped completely. I'd love some advice/crticism and what I should try fix and improve upon!
ISSUES I'M HAVING:
1) I can't create a tidy looking UV map. No matter where I place the seams, even taking note of where other modellers put their seams and loading a similar dress to see where the creator has put theirs, I end up with just... a big untidy looking blob. Therefore, I unfortunately can't get started on a texture map. If I apply a texture map to the UV I have., it's wonderful looking in some areas, but stretches in others.
2) I've used the transfer utility to get a basic rig going, but it doesn't bend very nicely, particularly the chest. How do I fix this?
3) Morphing in other characters makes it so much worse...
I know, I know. What you're seeing is an insanely amateurish piece of work. And I want you to be harsh on this - right now it's a piece of crap, and I want to learn how to make it better! So don't be afraid of being rough on it, because I'm here to learn and improve, not have my ego stroked for baby's first model! :p
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Comments
I can't hlep but I am going to follow along and take notes....
Not sure --but in case other more experienced modelers see this ...what figure is it? also It kind of looks like the dress was modeled on a morphed figure and then rigged on a non morphed figure
For the UV issues...look online at dress patterns...actual patterns to make a dress from. Those pieces should give you some help in breaking up the dress into a logical UV layout. For clothing, you will need several seams, not just that one cut you currently have. I would, minimally break it into a front and back for the unwrapping...maybe even more pieces.
Second, possibly more important...are you modelling this to the base (G3F or whatever) or to a character?
UV mapping is a skill all it's own. Just so you know that that uv map is going to stretch horribly when you put a texture on it. I tend to cut uvs for clothing like I would a pattern for the same item of clothing. Cut it down each side so that there's a front and a back...if that makes sense to you ;) It also looks like maybe the cloth may have thickness which "might" cause problems for you down the line. Most DS clothing doesn't have a back side, or in this case an "inside" since that's something one will never see and is just wasted polygons anyway. Maybe you only need a few rows of polygons around all the open edges on the inside. The rest of the interior you can delete.
It is the Genesis 3 Female base!
The dress was modelled on the Genesis 3 Female and then the Transfer Utility used; on an unmorphed G3F.
That's really key advice, thank you!!!!! Especially regarding several seams! I made a strange assumption that because it was a simple dress, it would only need 1 seam. I'm not sure why. Thank you so much!!!!! <3 It is being modelled to the base! I tried modelling it to a character before and that was certainly a mistake. The only morph loaded in was at the last picture, which shows how it distorts when a character -is- added.
Good lord, tell me about it. It really did stretch horribly and I was devastated, lol! Also, I don't know why it has that thickness, but you're right; I think I might start the dress from scratch again and try ensure that it doesn't have that thickness to it!
One of the best ways to learn how something is made is to examine something that's already made and look at how it's set up :).
Laurie
I think so too! I was doing as much with the Evalle dress by DeviousDolls - given that it's a shoulderless dress. However, that didn't help me, unfortunately - I looked at the skeleton, and it seemed to be the same as mine. I tried to look at how its weight mapping was set up, but it didn't seem to have any polygroups or weight mapping applied. I tried to follow the way they had done their seams (one up the back), and it gave me the result above.
I think what I'm going to do, for starters, is I'm going to google real life references of shoulderless dresses; and I'm going to start again, following one of these. HOPEFULLY, that should give me something better to start with!!
I used to have a shoulderless dress you could have examined at least for the modeling and uv mapping but I took it down (was for Poser and for a 3rd party model...all modeling is the same tho, no matter the figure).
When I first started modeling, for one I didn't jump right in the deep end like you've done...lol...but I do remember making things over 3, 4, 5 or more times until I got it right o.O.
Laurie
You're so right - I think that's been my fatal flaw. I didn't realize as much until your comment! After all, I've never created a thing in my life, I have no modelling skills, and yet here I am trying to model, uv, texture and rig a dress... And recently I've been wondering why I'm so bad at this and why it's so frustrating, lol!!
I think I'll take a step away from trying to create clothing and focus on simple little props to add to my renders. Thank you for that eye-opener, Laurie! I feel a little sheepish, lol!
I wasn't in any way bashing your method of learning (hey, the deep end works for some people ;)) - more I was illustrating my own tiny and tentative steps into the world of 3D modeling. LOL. I might actually be farther along now if I'd tried to drown myself in the beginning. :P Point being, there's sooooo much to learn. Here I am, been modeling for something like 7 years and still can barely rig anything. So much software and workflows to learn, so little time ;).
Laurie
I don't know if someone has mentioned this, but IIRC it's against the DAZ EULA to "extract" any part of the original G3F mesh to make another product that you redistribute, even as a freebie. Doing it for your own use is perfectly OK, but I recall in another thread that you indicated you are hoping to make freebies and/or products for sale. If that is your ultimate goal, then learning how to make the dress from "scratch" may be a better starting point (although a top or shorts/pants may be even better, since dresses are more difficult to rig)..
As Laurie indicated, there is a pretty large learning curve for modeling/texturing alone. Then you add in making it work with a DAZ figure (rigging), and things get more difficult. But the only way to learn is to try, so I'd say keep on trying! Your first efforts are quite good, especially when considering your inexperience.
Are you 100% sure...because she looks a little flatter in the chest than base G3F should (but it's hard to tell for sure with the dress on...a 'blank' grey profile view would be allowable to post)?
To ensure that there aren't any moprhs you should 'zero' the figure before exporting...in the Parameters tab, click the little lined box (looks like a piece of lined paper) and select 'Zero > Figure'. Then click 'Currently Used' and make sure nothing is showing. Also, it would be a good idea to export a zeroed figure at 'normal' resolution AND one at 'base' resolution.
Way too many polygons on that mesh that just aren't doing anything. The belly button mesh for example is a huge wast of polygons.Also the way you've done the thickness is wrong. You don't need to do thickness on the entire mesh. What I do is a tiny inward extrude along the outside edges and then a tiny extrude 90 degrees from that. It will make it look like there is thickness to the dress without adding a whole lot of polygons.
Here's the example of the L shaped extrude I do on my cloth.
As you can see, when it's rendered it makes it look like the cloth has thickness even though it doesn't. You have to really zoom in before you'd ever notice.
It looks like you're unwrapping your UV from the Y axis. Try unwrapping from the X or Z axis and see which gives better results.
First of all, that's AMAZING feedback. I really, really, really appreciate it!!!! I'm glad you've pointed out two very blatant things I need to fix.
Secondly, I just can't bloody wait until I get to the stage where I can make gorgeous little dresses like that. It looks so lovely and fabricy and natural... Sigh. <3
Just a few questions to follow!!!!
1) What happens when there's far too many polygons that aren't doing anything? Why should that be avoided? (I'm not disagreeing, but it's better to ask questions and fully grasp things!)
2) Would you recommend Hexagon for clothes creation rather than Zbrush? I feel Hexagon would give me more control over polygons and topology!
1) When there are too many redundant polygons you're increasing your render times and if there are too many poles (places where more than 4 edges come together) you run into shading a smoothing problems.
2) Yes, it's important to have both a good vertex modeler (like Hexagon) and a good sculpting program (like 3D-Coat or Zbrush). I start by building myself a rough low poly version of the outfit in Hexagon then import it into 3D Coat, voxelizing it and sculpting a detailed version, then I retopo the sculpted version, send it back to Hexagon to do things like add thickness to the edges (with that L shaped extrude). Then I send the finished mesh back to 3D Coat to UV Unwrap it (because the UV tools are better in 3D Coat than they are in Hexagon).
Right, excellent!! I think I'll follow your work flow - I'm having a much, much much nicer time starting off in Hexagon, rather than trying to sculpt from scratch in Zbrush. Something about using Hexagon is so relaxing and orderly...
Sent you a PM, btw! =D
Never hurts to learn box modeling (most of what you'll do in Hexagon).
Laurie