Modelling own clothes

natclarke

Can you use carrarra to model your own clothing? Is there something affordable out there to use for a mac? I plan to adjust a lot of the clothing I already have. I just want to add sashes, belts, head dresses to a model. I do have photoshop as well.

thanks

Natalie

DUDU

Marvelous Designer is the best way to go but into Carrara, you can model your own and apply a soft body modifier.
I think the simulation should be done on a low poly model.

Diomede

Hi. You asked a straightforward question and deserve a straightforward answer. Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. There is what Carrara is able to do, and then there is what Carrara can do conveniently. Different people use different programs.

Let me sketch several circumstances in which I have used Carrara to model my own clothes. With that in mind, I invite you to share what kind of figures you intend to clothe, what kind of posing/movement you intend for the figures (single pose or animation), and similar issues. We can then better describe the capabilities and limitations of Carrara.

Modeling - yes - but you can use Hexagon, Silo, or another modeling program if you prefer, or you can use Carrara's vertex modeler.

- 1) I have modeled my own base figures in Carara, rigged them for posing using Carrara's native bone structure, and then modeled clothing outfits against the base mesh and re-attached the clothed figure to the bone skeleton. So, Carrara can model clothing for custom figures that are modeled and rigged in Carrara. Bottom line - Carrara can do it all.

- 2) I have modeled conforming clothing for the older style Daz and Poser figures (Victoria 1-4, Michael 1-4, The Freak, ...). This category is called conforming because the clothing and the base figure have similar rigging, and the clothing poses to match the pose of the underlying figure. You can use Carrara to model the mesh, then use Daz Studio or Poser to rig the clothing to the base figure.

- 3) I have modeled conforming clothing for Genesis, Genesis 2, and other recent Daz "triax" figures. This process is similar to number (2) except the rigging is done in Daz Studio. I don' believe the rigging can be done in Poser, but I'm not sure.

- 4) I have modeled clothing meshes for both the older style figures and for Genesis triax figures and used "attach skeleton" in Carrara to apply simple conforming. This approach has a lot of limitations and requires editing bone influences, but it can be useful in limited circumstances.

- 5) Dynamic drape 1 - I have modeled a clothing mesh and used Poser's cloth room to drape the item on an underlying posed base figure. In Poser, I've done this for older figures and for genesis triax figures. I've then transferred the draped clothing objects and applied the underlying pose to a figure in Carrara. I am told this can be done with Blender. I suspect other programs with a drape function could also be used.

- 6) Dynamic drape 2 - I haven't used it, but I'm told marvelous designer can be integrated with Carrara.

- 7) Dynamic drape 3 - Carrara does have a physics engine that in theory can handle "soft body" calculations. In practice, other options descried above are generally preferred. However, it is possible to construct clothing and "undersuits" in Carrara, such that the physics engine drapes the cloth item against the undersuit rather than the base figure. That approach has shown some promise but has its own issues.

OK, so an answer to your straightforward question is "yes", but whether you actually want to do the mesh modeling in Carrara or not varies from person to person. You can certainly create and apply custom conforming clothing in Carrara. You can use Carrara with other programs like Poser or Marvelous Designer for draped clothing. With effort, you can create undersuits and use softbody physics in Carrara.

Note - not only can you create your own clothing in Carrara, you can create your own base figures.

Diomede

Here are some examples

A - modeling custom base figures, and then modeling different clothing outfits as part of the base mesh
woman
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28716/P150/#498036
man
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28716/P195/#499768
couple on beach
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28716/P195/#499902
man as Greek hero
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28716/P195/#500010

B - Modeling conforming clothing
getting started by modeling against base figure in the assemble room
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/P45/#770055
from clothing mesh t conforming figure
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/#676987

C - Using Poser to drape a dynamic clothing mesh and then bring the posed cloth item back to Carrara.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/#675785

Dartanbeck

Modeling in Carrara is wonderfully straight-forward and we may even do so inside the main Assemble Room area, which allows us to model around the actual figure which cannot be selected during the modeling process... very nice.

I've made this video to show what you do with your model after you've modeled it to Turn your clothing modeling into a Conforming Clothing for Genesis (1 or 2)

If you already have an understanding of 3d modeling, simply try this:

- Open the figure (in Carrara) you wish to make clothing for

- Leave the figure in its default T-Pose.

- (Optional) Select Actor (or Model) and go into the Texture Room and give everything the default gray shader, and remove unused shaders to simplify the scene for easier modeling - and then save the scene as a clothes modeling template

- Now go Insert > Vertex Object, which will take you to the Modeling Room - close the window and return to the Assemble Room

- With Vertex Object selected, go to the upper left corner and click on the wrench icon to turn the Assemble Room into the Model Room

- Go Construct > 3D Shape > Cube, and set it for a good starting cube, like 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 (ft) without any subdivisions

Scrub your mouse wheel back and forth slightly and you'll see your new cube in the head of the figure - or there-about. While it has everything selected (default), turn on symmetry (if that's what you want), and perhaps Subdivision Smoothing... whatever... and just start designing your clothing around the figure... it's easy and it's a blast! When you get to the point where you need more smoothing, click the Convert button below the SubD Smoothing to convert the logical SubD into fully realized polygons. Turn Smoothing back on, if you need it.

* Tip: if using Smoothing in your modeling techniques, you may still get creased edges either by calculated angles or by simply selecting the edges you wish to crease and go: Model > Crease Edges. The same may be done for Smooth edges as well.

Dartanbeck

Of course, Diomede's suggestions (above) are excellent sources to explore in this endeavor!

Mythmaker

natclarke said:

I plan to adjust a lot of the clothing I already have. I just want to add sashes, belts, head dresses to a model. I do have photoshop as well.

Hi Natalie, Carrara has a very solid internal shader system, which generates nice materials and textures for your DIY props. Like a mini FilterForge. You probably won't even need to launch Photoshop that much once you get the hang of it.

Oh yes you can model, color, and add whatever you want onto preset Daz characters, nude or clothed, in Carrara. A superman cap, baseball cap, ribbons, simple hair piece, handbag, etc. Far fewer hassles then in Daz Studio! :)

If your characters are meant for game style apps, you probably won't need to overwhelm yourself with rigging or dynamic physics simulations at this stage... Just drag and drop your DIY accessories to the selected bone part, done. The soft floppy stuff like sashes or ponytails, you can re-pose them easily frame by frame in Carrara.

But let's pull out a bit to look at bigger pic...

Some may not even need high resolution actors with high maintenance wardrobe system?

Do consider the idea of "one piece characters already with clothing on" for games/ app needs. And even simpler concept of making your own "no bone" characters in Carrara. If your human models and orang hutans don't move around that much, they don't even need to be rigged (have bones).

Do note that default users here are used to the concept of high resolution clothing items being "conformed" onto their high resolution characters with very involved rigging. Very different needs from game app producers...

If however you also wish to generate high res 2D images of high res Daz characters, then familiarize yourself with the concept of Daz3D conforming clothing, and how Genesis conforming clothing work inside Carrara. A "high information" area, be warned.

Which brings us to...

Choosing a character to make your add-on props for, is the first step. Stick to a character type, say Genesis, or Toon people. Each character type has their own conforming clothing system. Think of them like different game characters and go from there.

I will not recommend Genesis 2 or V4/M4 for game dev. Too high res and too much info.

Once you get comfortable with conforming clothing concept, then move onto rigging. Say, the tropical fish concept as shown by 3DAGE in the other post...

But it seems to be you're just after a game dev lo-res solution. If so, lucky for you!

Good luck... :)

PhilW

If you have the Advanced Carrara training videos from Infinite Skills, there is a whole section in there on different approaches to creating your own clothes. You can go a long way with just creating your own textures and transparencies for existing clothing items, right through to modelling from scratch and then using DAZ Studio's tools to create a conforming item, as Dart has indicated.

Diomede

Yes, what Phil said!

Also, in a similar approach to using transparencies or changing textures on existing cloth items, you can also make changes to the geometry of the existing cloth item - but you have to make it conforming again. For example, if there is a short-sleeve item with a collar that you like, but you want it to be long sleeve, you can change it using Carrara's (or any other) vertex modeler. Simply start with the unrigged obj of the cloth item (usually found in the geometries folder), add/subtract/rearrange whatever you want, and remember to address uvmapping and scale issues, and then use the transfer utility to convert the new obj to a conforming figure. You can use the DIM to find the geometry obj of items it installed from the Daz store. One advantage of this approach is that you can use Daz Studio's rigging tools to protect hard items like buttons from deformation.

Note - various copyright stuff might get in the way of sharing/distributing an altered geometry so don't try to sell a conforming clothing item made in this way without permission of the original creator.