Hi everyone,

I'm just wondering about something... It's a big step for me. How does one go about making conforming clothing? I thing I asked this question once before, long ago, but unfortunately life intrudes on plans sometimes, so I never got a chance to follow through. I'm in the middle of doing some artwork involving one of my favorite subjects: superheroes.
I've been having a hard time finding the right parts for a costume, such as gloves, boots, and a full head-cover face mask that's attached to a bodysuit. I can sometimes cobble together a costume by using a bodysuit from one clothing set, gloves from another, a belt from yet another, and so on and so forth. But that's left me very limited in what I can do in some cases, so I'd like to try making some of my own, and at some point adding them to my freebies section so other folks ca use them too.
So I guess what I'm asking is this:

1. How do I make conforming clothes?
2. What software is best for doing it?
3. Is it difficult to do?
   4) Are there any tutorials that might help me get started?

A lot of questions, I know, and I apologize for that. Any suggestions would truly be appreciated.

Steve

Making "clothing" involves modelling with vertices and edges and faces (polygons). There are a variety of programmes out there to do this in, ranging in price from free to hideously expensive, and in ease-of-use to quite intuitive to a bit knobby (vertical learning curve).

A lot depends on your budget and more importantly, time and patience in terms of learning how to model in 3D. Based on some experienced modellers who have offered advice in this and other forums, I'd suggest having a look at Wings3D, for which there is a lot of help available and which is fairly intuitive to use. I am trying to tailor my recommendation to what you've expressed as needs and not to what I'm most comfortable with.
Also, you might have a look in freestuff... you might find something close to what you need, then you would just bring it up in your modeller and tweak it to your needs.

My advice would be to start out with dynamic cloth.  This will be a less steep learning curve than Conforming Cloth.

You will of course need to learn to model clothes in a 3D modeller, as Robyn said, but once you have modelled the garment it takes far fewer steps to get your garment working in Poser.

In my experience the modelling part is the simplest part of making Conforming Cloth.  the rigging and setup to get it into Poser takes twice as long :)

With the Dynamic method you can concertrate on your modelling skills for a while, whilst still getting usable results, before getting into the joys of Conforming Cloth.

If you do not already have a modelling program I would suggest getting hold of a copy of the latest 3D World magazine, which has a free copy of Carrara 7 on the cover disk.  It's a good program, and for free is great :)  I use 3D Coat to get my basic mesh, then Carrara to add details.  Have a look in the Video Tutorials on rendo, I have a few videos on there which show how to make a dress in 3D Coat.  My videos on YouTube (looks for Fugazi3D) have lots of information about using 3D Coat and the Cloth Room in Poser.

John

PS

The legendary PhilC also has an article about making clothes for Poser in the current issue of 3D Artist, which you may find interesting.

John

Hmmmmm..... good advice. RobynsVail, I already have Wings 3D and I'm pretty comfortable using it for not only building basic models, but also for tweaking existing ones. I think I'll look into some things about clothing with it.
And Fugazil, I just bought 3D World the other day, and installed Carrara on my PC. What a great value that is! I have yet to do anything with it, as I haven't had a lot of free time lately. What you said intrigues me, though.... I know very little about Carrara and was under the assumption that it was for modeling scenery and backgrounds only. But you're saying I can use it for modeling other things, too?!? I definitely have to make time to check that out.
Now, I haven't seen the latest copy of 3D Artist yet. There's not a decent bookstore in my town that carries either one of those magazines. Just so happens a few days ago I was in a town about 10 miles away that happens to have a Barnes & Noble book store which DOES carry them. I only saw 3D World which I bought. PhilC is indeed a legend in the 3D world.... I may just have to make a road trip to Barnes & Noble tomorrow after work. :)

Thank you both!

Carrara is a bit of an oddity, I think the advertising I have seen for it does not cover it's full potential.

It is indeed a modelling application, certainly not restricted to lanscapes and the like.  In fact I haven't used it for that at all yet :)  A couple of the guys I work with use it more than I do, they create all sorts of things with it.

As I said I make my basic cloth meshes in 3D Coat, but use Carrara to add the finishing touches, like buttons and proper edges.  I have not tried it yet, but I am absolutely positive that I could make clothes from scratch in Carrara without any problems at all.  Especially as moving models to and from Poser while maintaining the scale and position is pretty easy.

John

I just purchased 3D Artist whilst on holidays and got Carrara 7 Pro in the magazine DVD. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this version is more stable: the last one I tried was reminiscent of Silo in terms of crash-behaviour.

With Silo, I kept upgrading in hopes that the crashing would eventually resolve, and then NeverCenter stopped developing it... and I was like: "hmmmm, doesn't bode well..."

Quote - I just purchased 3D Artist whilst on holidays and got Carrara 7 Pro in the magazine DVD. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this version is more stable: the last one I tried was reminiscent of Silo in terms of crash-behaviour.

With Silo, I kept upgrading in hopes that the crashing would eventually resolve, and then NeverCenter stopped developing it... and I was like: "hmmmm, doesn't bode well..."

It's pretty stable for me :) I don't think it has crashed yet.  the 3D World issue with Carrara 7 on it, also has a big shader package, Mimic and a traing video :) might be worth a look.

John

Feel free to check out my website. It was made for creating clothes.

Has anyone any knowledge of Zbrush in connection with modeling for Poser?