Just three threads down (Upgrade worthwhile thread), was mention that Maya had 'much better cloth generation'.

So... what sort of cloth generation does C5 offer? (NOT C5 Pro, but just C5)

I've seen tutorials online before for the high end apps were they seem to just take a sheet and wrap it around a body, then cut holes for limbs, and after the click the magic button everything just kind of 'comes together' into a fitting outfit the artist can then cut away from or add onto to suit a given design...

Some of these things just seem to work like magic...

Does C5 offer any tools for cloth design?

Anything for making model 'B' fit around model 'A' in the sort of way you would need for this?

With C1 when I tried making clothing I remember just grabbing vertexes by hand and trying to pull them closer to the figure without popping through, and never quite knowing how to do it better. As a result, I didn't exactly get all that far...

I guess I would want to know, not only if C5 has the tools, but which ones they might be and if there are learning aids out there, such as clothing design tutorials?

Message edited on: 12/08/2005 16:57

HI, There is no cloth simulation in C5 nor C5Pro. I think they were refering to Poser cloth simulation Ringo

For now, dynamic cloth is done in Poser and imported into Carrara. Whether or not the cloth is still dynamic in Carrara is a good question.

Yeah this is a weak spot. If either DAZ or Carrara plugin developer could do something there...they would have users.I don't really want to get poser, but afraid I may have to.

Not talking about dynamic cloth here. I'm asking about tools for designing original clothing models. If you look at plugins for apps like lightwave, they have items to let a prop be shaped around another prop easier. For example: http://smorigin.scm.cityu.edu.hk/intranet/lm3/docs/how_tos/cloth/ or better, does carrara have anything that might simplify a project like this: http://www.royriggs.com/tanktop.html Let's say for example that I was 'As Shanim', minus all of his knowledge ( :) ), and I wanted to make one of the outfits he sells for V3. So I've got this 3D modeeling app now, and I'm a wannabe modeller, and I know I want to perhaps make a loincloth-leotard like thingy (as a random example), and a pair of boots. Is there a tutorial anywhere that tells me, as a newbie to the process, what to do? And is Carrara a good choice for doing it? Somewhere a few years back I saw a lightwave or Cinema plugin that would do something similar to the Poser dynamic cloth room, but when starting with just a cube wrapped around your figure and sort of 'shrinky-dinking' it down onto the figure. Lacking such a tool, would it be good to do something like make a cube, stick a figure inside it, and then do some boolean extractions and then keep only that inside surface cutaway of your ex-cube, tweaked and scaled around to taste for a garment? While the Poser dynamic cloth room is nifty, you have to start with an existing prop to use it, and its the creating of that existing prop that I'm seeking here. For people who do know how to make complex items like the clothing we see being made for Poser figures, where and how did you learn to do it and if you had to start learning today, would you think you could pull it off with Carrara and the advice out there for Carrara users in the Carrara community? :) This one might be a tall order for a question... But that's where I stand. :p I know nothing, but I know where I want to get (making clothing props for my Poser characters). With Carrara 1 my big frustration was not seeing how to close the gap with knowledge, and a set of tools that didn't seem fitted to the job when I tried learning with tutorials prepared for the higher end apps...

You might want to contact Mapps (here at R'sity) He uses Carrara to create clothing and props for Poser. He wrote a tutorial a while back iin this forum you might want to check out. Search for "Mapps".

Arcady, I think the tool your talking about is in Rhino, it maps bands around an object and then you can loft over the splines. There's something on that over at Poser Pros. Carrara doesn't have toold like that. As with anything, how much time and effort you put into learning the avaiable tools will determine how well the program works for you. I've attached a composite of some of the Poser clothing I've modeled, all done in the Carrara Vertex modeller and In these cases rendered in Poser. They may not be in As Shanim's league yet but I'm working on it ;*) Check back in this forum. I started a tutorial on making clothing in Carrara, then got really side tracked. If I ever get my upgrade I'll try to dust it off and move it to the latest version (some of the new tools look REALLY promising!) Hope this helps. mike

Actually they are amazing to my eyes at this point. I pulled As Shanim out of the hat just as an example... :) I would realy -LOVE- an as detailed as you can humanly manage tutorial for these. The bottom three in particular each in turn handle issues that I think would be nightmares to figure out for the first time. I might be wrong, but that's how they look to me at present.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=887298&Start=1&Artist=DustRider&ByArtist=Yes

The outfit above is dynamic cloth, and a work in progress. The dress and top were modeled in Hexagon, then imported for use as dynamic cloth in Poser. With the addition of Hexagon technologies to C5, the vertex modeler should be very good for modeling Poser clothing. I don't have C5 (on my wish list), but I do have Hexagon, and it's great for creating clothes for Poser. If all you want to do is create clothing, you might download the Hexagon demo and give it a try. If you want to expand your options for general 3D, including modeling, then C5 is a very good choice.

Have you looked at Clothing Creator by PhilC?http://www.philc.net/
It might be a good way to create the basic mesh to export to a program like Carrara for enhancement.

Once you render a Poser scene in Cararra, you may never want to render in Poser again. The quality and speed of renders in Cararra are much better than Poser. The attached link is to a WIP I started over a year ago (still waiting for the finishing touches). The image has a sword made in Carrara 3/4 and clothing made using a combination of Carrara and C4D. The image was rendered using HDRI, which is a snap to use and get great results compared to P6. Even though your interested in doing clothing, you might want to model other props like the sword, which was very easy to model in Carrara.

Hope my 2 cents helps.

Is it going to be tough doing it in Carrara without Hexagon as a plugin? Consider an extremely limited budget - I am essentially trying to maximize my buyin and get the most I can possibly get within that budget, which is not likely to go over one cent above $250 for some time to come... A complete newbie, but I do know my way around Poser, Vue, and Bryce - bot a model creator but I can do the 'photographer's end' of 3D. Even adding in Clothing Creator might be tough, but if it is very highly recommended I might get it in a month or two after getting Carrara. I'm on a limited student budget right now, as I'm 'back in school' and my savings from the dot-com era have run their full course. Carrara will be coming to me as a gift in January. :) (we tried to order the box, but couldn't even do it as a pre-order, so waiting till january after the other person gets back from a trip overseas). But if the community here had told me 'don't buy this, we're only in here to complain about it' then I would have asked the person giving me that gift to hold off - however the commentary here looks like I should instead be thanking my lucky stars that I'm getting this gift. :) The way I see it, is that maybe one to three months after I get carrara, I will get 'one plugin'. I was planning transposer, but if Hexagon or Cloth Creator would meet my needs better I will go that way. (having only Vue 5 basic and Poser 5, I have learned how to get dynamics into Vue the hard way - save them as an obj and reimport them into Poser, scale the new prop and fit it into the position of the dynamic it was based on, then delete the dynamic, move all content to frame one, and save for Vue import ;) ). If I need to do that in Carrara to keep my dynamics intact... I can if there is something else I should make into a budget priority. I love that dynamic dress by the way. Both of the two images above feature clothes like the ones in my imagination that I have been wanting to make since I got into 3D in 99... So from now till January... it's learn what I can and drool time... :)

More tutorials for clothing or uvmapping have my vote. Arcady, it was posted that 3dxtract.com is having 50% off ezine special. May find something there there also. There are some tutorials here. I saw several clothing related.You can find some good stuff here. http://www.daz3d.com/support/tutorial/index.php

Message edited on: 12/09/2005 00:50

Hexagon and Clothing Creator are stand-alone programs, not plug-ins like Transposer.

Arcady, I have both Hexagon and Carrara, and for my money I'd go with Carrara (I bought Hexagon literally day sbefore the upgrade was announced!). Hex is a great modeller, but Carrara gives you a LOT more versatility that I'm in the process of learning. I can forsee a time when Poser may wind up just gathering dust on the hard drive. The Poseing tools in Carrara ( Native DAZ model input with bones, morphing and deforming, plus native modelling) are very close to passing up and the terrain modelling etc is already far and away past Poser. And, as said above, the rendering engine is a dream compared to Firefly. As soon as I get the full Upgrade (sigh!!! waiting... waiting...) I'll work out some tuts. There are enough changes that I might as well start fresh. I'd be using the BETA for everything now except for a couple of bugs that hurt the way I do things, (all were reported and sound like they were attended to.. I hope!) Otherwise I'd need to come up with work-arounds, so why bother 'til I see what the final version has. Oh, and if you can swing the pro version it already has Transposer so you could grab one of the great Carver's Guild plug-ins.I have my eye on "Any thing Goos" now since I suck at textureing on my own, I love proceural shaders. mike

Arcady,

For overall versatility, Carrara is the way to go. Hex is a modeler, and does nothing else but modeling and basic UV mapping (but does modeling VERY well). Carrara is a "full" 3D package that does modeling, rendering, physics simulations, trees, landscapes, UV mapping, animation, etc. Carrara also has a very powerfull and easy to use spline modeler, which IMHO is one of the best spline modelers around (the blade, hand gaurd, and handle of the sword in the Eve image were done with the spline modeler).

If you can swing it either by getting the C5 Pro or by buying the plugin, Transposer2 is a great addition if your using Poser because it imports both dynamic cloth and hair. But with the native support for poser figures in C5, your method of importing "static" dynamic cloth from Poser via .obj should work very well. So, with budget being a big concern, you may find that you can easily work around not having transposer.

Clothing Creator could help speed up the generation of basic meshes for cloth, but you can make the meshes manually in Carara, it just takes more time (but a good skill to learn). The clothes above were done by creating basic featureless models in Hex, importing into Poser and using the cloth simulator to drape the cloth over the Poser figure. Exporting the draped mesh back to Hex and adding detail, then exporting back to Poser for use as dyamic clothing. The same procedure could easily be done with C5.

Good Luck!
Rich

Did they resolve the mesh problem w/ imported poser clothing that didn't align properly?

I've been doing similar, Rich...exporting a medium-poly mesh from Carrara and using the "shrink-fit" method via the Poser5 cloth room to drape it...then taking it back into Carrara for detailing. I wanted to use the lovely Hexagon toolset for this detailing, but Carrara has the useful habit of preserving the UVmap when subdividing or using new edges. Hexagon does not. Now, the question before me is; do the new edge tools (bevel, et al) in Carrara continue to respect the UVmap? Or are edges added in some random UV coordinates?

So it sounds like Poser in hand with Carrara allows for a way of simulating what those $1000 apps and their plugins do. I've noticed that some of the new edge tools are Pro only - NEW Extract Along Edge (Pro only) NEW Extract Around (Pro only) NEW Move Along (Pro only) NEW Ruled surfaces (Pro only) NEW Double sweep (Pro only) NEW Coons surfaces (Pro only) NEW Gordon Surfaces (Pro only) How -critical- are such tools to designing close fitting clothing like a leotard, jeans, socks, etc.? Obviously people did such modelling before C5, and these features are new to C5Pro, but did they need or find 'almost necessary' some external plugin to do it before?

arcady, I didn't use any external plug ins to model my stuff. I only used plug-in for some rendering in C4Pro. mike

In C5 and CPro5 you can copy and paste body parts and then do offsets of the pasted parts to make form-fitting catsuits/boots.

There aren't any copyright issues with doing that?

Yes there would be. Better is to copy and paste the body parts and use some tricks to patch or box model around them. That way the mesh is yours. Unless it's for your own use. mike

Is this the mapps tutorial animajikgraphics mentioned:
http://www.freewebs.com/mapps/downloadstutorial.htm

And the only one like it so far?

I've -just- downloaded it, and will be seeing what I can learn during the long wait for my copy of this app to arrive, maybe I'll grab one of the old demos, or see how much of this can be done with C1. :)
EDIT: Nope, that one's for making boxes. :)

Message edited on: 12/10/2005 21:05

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2093968

arcady try looking here, in the archives on this forum. It's the one I started, and never finished, but it might be enough to get you started. mike