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Marvelous Designer 8 coming 6th of November.

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  • WilmapWilmap Posts: 2,917

     I’m running MD 8 on Windows 7 as well no problems.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,857
    edited November 2018

    ...what CPU do you have?  There was something about needing a certain process or API as well and my old first generation i7 doesn't support it.

     

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996

    Where is this Direct12 listed thing?

    https://www.marvelousdesigner.com/product/system

    There's nothing at all listed on their page, and the only results I get from googling for marvelous designer dx12 is this thread.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,857
    edited November 2018

    ....ah, found it.  Wasn't an API, however, according to the Steam site, it requires a Sandy Bridge or newer CPU.  My i7 is Nehalem which is two generations older. and lacks an internal CPU process that Sandy Bridge and later CPUs have.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996
    kyoto kid said:

    ....ah, found it.  Wasn't an API, however, according to the Steam site, it requires a Sandy Bridge or newer CPU.  My i7 is Nehalem which is two generations older. and lacks an internal CPU process that Sandy Bridge and later CPUs have.

    Nehalem was only one generation before Sandy Bridge (I have one and it's the second generation of the core i processors.) I can't find anything about what happens if you try to run MD with an older processor or if it'd just be slow, but can't you just do the free trial and see what happens?

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,857
    edited November 2018

    ...actually two, as Westmere falls in between.  Mine is definitely oldest of the first generation (i7 930 - Bloomfield). 

    I verified this checking their support Q&A page under minimum system requirements:

    CPU: i5 2.4 GHz (Sandy Bridge, ivy bridge, and Haswell, Devil's Canyon Microarchitecture

    Yeah, I'll give the demo a shot and see what happens. 

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • lx_2807502lx_2807502 Posts: 2,996
    kyoto kid said:

    ...actually two, as Westmere falls in between.  Mine is definitely oldest of the first generation (i7 930 - Bloomfield). 

    I verified this checking their support Q&A page under minimum system requirements:

    CPU: i5 2.4 GHz (Sandy Bridge, ivy bridge, and Haswell, Devil's Canyon Microarchitecture

    Yeah, I'll give the demo a shot and see what happens. 

    Yea I saw it listed there too, but you can often slip under specifically listed requirements if you're pretty close, though things might be slower than what they think is acceptable etc. Might not work at all, but either way, when the company offers a free trial, it doesn't hurt to try.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,258

     

    kyoto kid said:

    ....ah, found it.  Wasn't an API, however, according to the Steam site, it requires a Sandy Bridge or newer CPU.  My i7 is Nehalem which is two generations older. and lacks an internal CPU process that Sandy Bridge and later CPUs have.

    OpenCL support? My CPU (1st gen Core2) doesn't support that, so no dForce here either until I upgrade.

  • marhewittmarhewitt Posts: 0

    Just got MD8 running, powerful and fast simulation indeed!

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited December 2018
    L'Adair said:
    marble said:
    bluejaunte said:
    marble said:
    L'Adair said:
    I'm so tempted to buy MD8 but even at the low price of $240 it is somewhat extravagant on my meagre income. I have a long-standing aversion to Steam so, no matter how often I am told it is safe and genuine, I just don't trust it. I'll see how expensive Christmas is this year and try to justify the $240 in the New Year.

    One of the reasons I hesitate - apart from price - is I'm not sure how useful it will be with DAZ Studio and dForce or is it an alternative to dForce? If so, is it a matter of exporting figures from the scene and re-importing draped clothing as morphs? I', not at all clear on that process.

    I'd say if you're not a PA or willing to invest considerable amount of time to learn MD8, textruing, rigging and setting up dForce, there is no need to spend money on it. It's another content creation tool just like zBrush, Maya, Substance etc., just for clothes.

    Thanks - just the kind of advice I needed. I did have the trial version for a month and enjoyed what it could do but never got to the point of integrating the workflow with DAZ Studio. Even at $240, one can buy quite a lot of ready made dForce items for that amount.

    Dave, you have until the middle of February to take advantage of that price. You don't have to decide now.

    I picked MD8 up shortly after posting the bit from Steam. (I'm not a vendor, nor do I expect to become one.) I will be using this to help clothes I already have fit better, as well as creating my own for my characters. It's going to take a bit of time to learn the program, but before long, I won't be dependent on the vendors for clothing for my guys. Or my gals, for that matter. Not to mention the outfits I already have for the gals that I can now adjust to something less… um… skimpy!

    I finally made that decision and bought MD8 Personal today from the MD Store at the "Special Offer" price of $250. I had to remind myself of some of the things it is capable of and how I try to achieve those things at the moment. I think I might have a lot of fun with a much better tool so I'm looking forward to the learning curve.

    Turns out that my Christmas gift buying spree was not as severe on my bank account as I had feared and considering that big MD discount, it was now or never.

    Post edited by marble on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    So I've started that MD learning curve and am getting to know my way around the user interface and have watched a few tutorials on the basics. However, I'm having trouble finding tutorials which explain the relationship between DAZ Studio figures, objects and clothing and how to use them in MD (or MD7 or 6). 

    If anyone has any bookmarked videos, etc., which deal with exporting/importing between the two programs, please post the links.

  • xmasrosexmasrose Posts: 1,409
    edited December 2018

    Hope that helps : some by SickleYield :  https://www.youtube.com/user/SickleYield/videos?spfreload=5

    includes Marvelous Designer For Daz Studio 01: Draping With Animation, Marvelous Designer For Daz Studio 02: Creating A Garment, Marvelous Designer For Daz Studio 03: Sim Existing Garments.

    There are others but I'll have to look for them.

    Post edited by xmasrose on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited December 2018

    Hi, Dave. I'm happy you were able to finally get MD!

    I purchased the training package from CGElves last January, when it was really cheap, and watched most of them the week after buying MD8. Got a lot of things going on this time of year, so I haven't delved deeply into it yet, but I do have a few tips for you, based on what I've discovered from trial and error:

    1. You have to convert clothing to OBJs to import into MD. However, when tracing the pattern, MD will create a pattern piece for each Face Group, (i.e. Upper Chest, Lower chest, etc.) as well as for each surface. I have had the most success bringing in older clothing and tracing a pattern when I've used the Geometry Editor Tool in Daz Studio first to select all the polys and apply them to a single Face Group. I then rename the group with all the polys "default" and remove the rest and only then do I export to OBJ.. The MD8 trace function then uses the material zones to create the pattern. Pattern tracing doesn't always work, though, and I've had MD stop working while trying to trace the pattern of some items. I usually get an error about importing the "fabric", too, but that doesn't necessariy stop the import from working.
    2. You can create your own "Avatars" from Daz figures. I recommend using the base. For example, Genesis 3 Male instead of Michael 7. Export the figure as a Wavefront OBJ from Daz. It doesn't matter if it is Base or High Resolution, but I've used Base out of habit. Import the OBJ as an Avatar, with the Scale settings to Daz Studio (cm) and the option at the bottom of the dialong to put the figure to the floor checked. (Sorry, I'm doing this from memory.) Now select and save as an Avatar. Once saved, you can load the Daz Avatar figure without having to import it every time.
    3. Avatar's are loaded in World Center, but MD does not treat your Daz Avatar the same as their own. It will be set back slightly. When you load a Daz clothing object, it will be forward of the Avatar. After fighting with this for I don't know how long, it finally occurred to me to fix it in DS. I was draping an existing shirt to create a morph. My solution was to import the object into DS, translate it to where I needed it be, slightly forward of where it loaded. Hide everything else and export the obj, overwriting it's existing file. Then delete the object, Unhide the figure and the clothing item and use Morph Loader Pro to apply the translated obj to the target clothing as a morph.

    I see xmasrose has beat me to the punch, er post, and linked to SY's videos. They will be helpful, but keep in mind, they are using MD4, so the location of some of the tools has changed. The tools are still relatively easy to find, though, imo. So far, the MD8 videos on Youtube are more about informing us of the new features, then teaching how to use them. Hopefully that will change soon.

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • tycidetycide Posts: 40
    edited December 2018

    I LOVE MD.

    I made this shirt in MD8 using the Gen8F Base in Default pose as an avatar. I literally took a shirt I wanted to make, and laid it flat on the table and measured the edges of the pieces and redrew that in MD, sewed it together and draped it on the model. (Then I had to shrink it down to fit better and that got a little complicated.)
    In the end it turned out pretty close.
    Bringing it into Daz was super easy with the transfer tool, and it was mostly conforming...ish, kinda.
    Dforced it with default settings and got this:

    A fews months back I made this dress in the MD7 trial. I figured it would be pretty easy. I was wrong.
    I spend nearly the entire 30 days making patterns and starting over. I think re-started from scratch 7 different times to only get 75% of the dress I was trying to make before the demo expired. Luckily it still looked like a decent dress so I've used it in some renders. What I learned was MD is amazing, patterning is hard.

    It's also super handy for curtains and such.
    I imported the pergola as an avatar in MD7, and tried to make some drapes. MD worked great, my execution was a little lacking:

    ShirtTest002.png
    1920 x 1080 - 888K
    ShirtTest003.png
    1920 x 1080 - 960K
    FTSAABL005.png
    1920 x 1080 - 2M
    DistractedCurtains.png
    1920 x 1080 - 2M
    Post edited by tycide on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited December 2018
    L'Adair said:

    Hi, Dave. I'm happy you were able to finally get MD!

    I purchased the training package from CGElves last January, when it was really cheap, and watched most of them the week after buying MD8. Got a lot of things going on this time of year, so I haven't delved deeply into it yet, but I do have a few tips for you, based on what I've discovered from trial and error:

    1. You have to convert clothing to OBJs to import into MD. However, when tracing the pattern, MD will create a pattern piece for each Face Group, (i.e. Upper Chest, Lower chest, etc.) as well as for each surface. I have had the most success bringing in older clothing and tracing a pattern when I've used the Geometry Editor Tool in Daz Studio first to select all the polys and apply them to a single Face Group. I then rename the group with all the polys "default" and remove the rest and only then do I export to OBJ.. The MD8 trace function then uses the material zones to create the pattern. Pattern tracing doesn't always work, though, and I've had MD stop working while trying to trace the pattern of some items. I usually get an error about importing the "fabric", too, but that doesn't necessariy stop the import from working.
    2. You can create your own "Avatars" from Daz figures. I recommend using the base. For example, Genesis 3 Male instead of Michael 7. Export the figure as a Wavefront OBJ from Daz. It doesn't matter if it is Base or High Resolution, but I've used Base out of habit. Import the OBJ as an Avatar, with the Scale settings to Daz Studio (cm) and the option at the bottom of the dialong to put the figure to the floor checked. (Sorry, I'm doing this from memory.) Now select and save as an Avatar. Once saved, you can load the Daz Avatar figure without having to import it every time.
    3. Avatar's are loaded in World Center, but MD does not treat your Daz Avatar the same as their own. It will be set back slightly. When you load a Daz clothing object, it will be forward of the Avatar. After fighting with this for I don't know how long, it finally occurred to me to fix it in DS. I was draping an existing shirt to create a morph. My solution was to import the object into DS, translate it to where I needed it be, slightly forward of where it loaded. Hide everything else and export the obj, overwriting it's existing file. Then delete the object, Unhide the figure and the clothing item and use Morph Loader Pro to apply the translated obj to the target clothing as a morph.

    I see xmasrose has beat me to the punch, er post, and linked to SY's videos. They will be helpful, but keep in mind, they are using MD4, so the location of some of the tools has changed. The tools are still relatively easy to find, though, imo. So far, the MD8 videos on Youtube are more about informing us of the new features, then teaching how to use them. Hopefully that will change soon.

    Yeah, I think I've watched all of the latest MD8 "new features" videos but I had little experience of older versions to compare with. The sculpt tool looks interesting and there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for the mesh conversion - although I'm still not sure if and when I will need to use that.

    Your experiences with the misalignment on import sound a bit tricky - I have not seen that mentioned elsewhere but I'm not at the stage of importing/exporting garments yet. The first thing I did today was to create avatars for G3F and G8F (and also one for G3F in A pose). I got really stumped because they were being imported without textures/materials even though there was a .MTL file created by the DAZ Studio Object export dialogue. I finally figured out that it needed a couple of changes to the export options but it took a lot of trial and error. I know some prefer to work with plain white avatars but I got stuck on solving why I couldn't get the textured version.

    I have to decide what I'm going to use MD for. One of the Poser artists who posts his work on DevArt makes all his clothes in MD now. Seems he doesn't bother rigging or conforming them but just drapes them for each pose. I guess that's pretty much my goal too, eventually. Or use some of my wardrobe of suitable older clothing objects - I think I have quite a few old Optitex garments hiding in my runtime somewhere.

    Post edited by marble on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    xmasrose (aka tulipe) said:

    Hope that helps : some by SickleYield :  https://www.youtube.com/user/SickleYield/videos?spfreload=5

    includes Marvelous Designer For Daz Studio 01: Draping With Animation, Marvelous Designer For Daz Studio 02: Creating A Garment, Marvelous Designer For Daz Studio 03: Sim Existing Garments.

    There are others but I'll have to look for them.

    Thanks - I have been watching one of SY's videos today but I will get through the set eventually.

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 10,310
    tycide said:
    ...

    A fews months back I made this dress in the MD7 trial. I figured it would be pretty easy. I was wrong.
    I spend nearly the entire 30 days making patterns and starting over. I think re-started from scratch 7 different times to only get 75% of the dress I was trying to make before the demo expired. Luckily it still looked like a decent dress so I've used it in some renders. What I learned was MD is amazing, patterning is hard.

    It's also super handy for curtains and such.
    I imported the pergola as an avatar in MD7, and tried to make some drapes. MD worked great, my execution was a little lacking:

    Patterning is hard - it is so truth statement.

    This part just keep me away from MD, for now.

    It will be nice to have some helper application to assist with patterning.

    Please keep posting. I have still not decided to buy MD 8.

     

  • WilmapWilmap Posts: 2,917

    It helps a great deal with drawing patterns if you have some experience with sewing. Look at some paper patterns that you buy to see how the pieces go together. 

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited December 2018

    So my initial impressions so far.

    • I've been having problems with the DAZ Studio object export settings. They don't seem to behave consistently and I'm getting weird materials exported with clothing objects which, when viewed in MD8, seem to inherit the materials of the character in the DAZ Studio scene, even though I make her invisible. 
    • I've tried exporting a few items of clothing to simulate in MD but I'm finding the sims are either painfully slow or they crash/explode. I'm guessing that there is a very narrow range of conforming clothing that can be exported successfully to MD - maybe even fewer than dForce can handle without explosions.
    • I have an i7 3.4GHz Skylake CPU which I would have though would perform ok but now I'm wondering whether it is already inadequate. I was surprised to find that MD does not use the GPU for simulation purposes. [EDIT] I just tried with a pre-made garment from the MD Library and the performance is reasonable so, again, the problem was with the imported items.
    • The user interface is ok but I somehow got stuck with a 3D viewport which started zoomed right in to the navel and I could not get MD8 to start with a different zoom factor. I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling just to reset that.
    • I'm about to embark on my first attempt at making a garment from scratch (I think this will be the best option for the future as importing conforming stock doesn't seem too practical). However, I'm also about to leave for the holidays so I might get a quick poncho going as a started before I start the real work.
    Post edited by marble on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @marble, On the bottom of the screen, right hand side, there are three icons for the Display: 2D, 3D and Both. Click on these to switch between them. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel. (The directions are opposite those of Photoshop, if you're use to PS.) Rotating is more difficult. You have to hold down a key, (Shift, I think,) and drag while holding down the right mouse button. (!?!?!) Pressing the F key, (F for Focus,) the screen should zoom in or out to the currently selected object, (if I remember that function correctly. Try it. See what happens.) Looking at the menus, you will find other key combinations for doing repetitive tasks. It might help to write them down in a binder or on note cards. I know I intend to, until I know them by heart.

    I've had much better luck importing an OBJ as Garment when I leave Trace pattern off. But a lot of older clothing will fall apart when simulated as they aren't welded. When you save a garment as an OBJ, there is an option to "Weld" and I've been wondering if importing an object as garment, then exporting it with Weld selected, deleting the object and then importing the version of the object just welded will solve the falling apart issue. Dang. Now I must go try that! lol

    Happy Holidays, Dave. I hope you have a great time with family and/or friends!

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited December 2018
    L'Adair said:

    @marble, On the bottom of the screen, right hand side, there are three icons for the Display: 2D, 3D and Both. Click on these to switch between them. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel. (The directions are opposite those of Photoshop, if you're use to PS.) Rotating is more difficult. You have to hold down a key, (Shift, I think,) and drag while holding down the right mouse button. (!?!?!) Pressing the F key, (F for Focus,) the screen should zoom in or out to the currently selected object, (if I remember that function correctly. Try it. See what happens.) Looking at the menus, you will find other key combinations for doing repetitive tasks. It might help to write them down in a binder or on note cards. I know I intend to, until I know them by heart.

    I've had much better luck importing an OBJ as Garment when I leave Trace pattern off. But a lot of older clothing will fall apart when simulated as they aren't welded. When you save a garment as an OBJ, there is an option to "Weld" and I've been wondering if importing an object as garment, then exporting it with Weld selected, deleting the object and then importing the version of the object just welded will solve the falling apart issue. Dang. Now I must go try that! lol

    Happy Holidays, Dave. I hope you have a great time with family and/or friends!

    Thanks again, L'Adair. I wasn't having a problem using the 3d Window controls (Zoom, Rotate, etc.) - the problem was the default start view which was stuck on being zoomed right up close. I had to manually reposition and correct the zoom before I could see anything. I'm quite happy with the controls for moving around the windows, I just wanted to save a default view and couldn't figure out how, so I uninstalled and reinstalled.

    I was doing exactly as you described to import the garment - with Trace Pattern off and Obj as Garment. Those I tried had little bows or unwelded straps or had a huge polygon count (which made the sim very slow).

    Post edited by marble on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    Yes. The "promise" of using any older content by simply importing into MD and fitting to the character was more in my own mind, I'm afraid. Perhaps when I know MD better, I'll be able to use most things I own, but for now, I just don't know enough about what I'm doing. I was able to sim a shirt into a nicer open state. Guess I'll take my victories where I can find them!

    (By the way, the Genesis 8 Starter Essentials include a script to export a base resolution object without having to change the resolution in the parameters first. You still need to hide everything else, though. Still, it's a time saver, for sure. I've added it to my Scripts menu.)

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 26,226

    This free script is helpful for hiding all other objects before exporting.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    barbult said:

    This free script is helpful for hiding all other objects before exporting.

    I keep forgetting about such handy scripts. I did know that one because I requested a variation on it which would turn off visibility in simulation for all but selected items. Casual was good enough to oblige, here:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/273901/mcjsimviz-mass-turn-off-on-simulation-visibility-for-selected-unselected-nodes

     

     

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 26,226
    marble said:
    barbult said:

    This free script is helpful for hiding all other objects before exporting.

    I keep forgetting about such handy scripts. I did know that one because I requested a variation on it which would turn off visibility in simulation for all but selected items. Casual was good enough to oblige, here:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/273901/mcjsimviz-mass-turn-off-on-simulation-visibility-for-selected-unselected-nodes

    And I forgot about that one! I had already downloaded it. Thanks for the reminder.

  • sandmanmaxsandmanmax Posts: 992

    I'm curious if MD will allow me to mimic how actual fabric would perform in a pattern?  I've got a book with a bunch of historic patterns that make zero sense, even though I've been sewing for decades.  I have no idea how to sew a bustle for instance and the pattern for it is very weird. So If I draft the pattern in MD, will it actually simulate gravity and draping and could it actually look like the real garment? Maybe use it to mess around with the "how to sew it together" part in MD?  Something along the lines "oh - that side there is the top and goes at the waistline".  Or does it still depend on knowing how to put the thing together in real life?  Also, is there a way to import scans of actual clothing patterns?  The patterns in my book are printed on graph paper which I would think would help keep everything to scale.

     

  • WilmapWilmap Posts: 2,917

    If you want to add patterns you need to draw a square and then load the pattern as a texture. Then you can trace over them once you have the scale correct.

  • sandmanmaxsandmanmax Posts: 992
    Wilmap said:

    If you want to add patterns you need to draw a square and then load the pattern as a texture. Then you can trace over them once you have the scale correct.

    Ah!  That's easy enough.  Thanks.

  • sandmanmaxsandmanmax Posts: 992
    edited December 2018

    OK- so I got the trial and I"m trying to make the 3 layer dress in one of the tutorials.  But the side seams lengths are all wonky and trying to set the lengths by trial and error is driving me nuts.  Isn't there a way to select all the segments for the side-seams and tell it make them 12 inches?

    Never mind... it doesn't seem like it's possible.

    Post edited by sandmanmax on
  • spleenrippaspleenrippa Posts: 30

    I upgraded to MD8 this fall and began to dig in during xmas vacation. Despite being an owner since MD6, I never really got a chance to use it much due to work (overseas deployments will do that).

    I've got the sewing basics down, but what I need to learn are the "good practices" for Marvelous Designer to Daz Studio workflow. I'm wondering if there are things to avoid, or features in MD that won't be of use in once a garment is imported into DS? For example, do internal lines export or do they disappear? If you clone a pattern over top for extra thickness, will it cause problems in DS? Those kind of considerations...

    And rigging... Ugh... Any consensus on the best tutorial(s) for rigging garments?

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