I wanted to start doing conforming clothes "again" and wanted to ask some questions. These questions are from a merchants standpoint, but I'd like all the "customer" feedback I can get. Honestly, my past attempts were "horrible". It was a ton of drama getting things to work, I was unfamiliar w/ the tools in Poser for conforming clothing creation (still am =P), and sales wise I have never had worse flops, lol... That's ok, I'm tuff, I can take it... Now I have PP2010, better modeling tools, am becoming very comfortable w/ the PFE, and just yesterday picked up the AutoGroup Editor and D3D's MorCloth scripts.

So far, I have been able to model, conform, "rig", and add the morphs to my clothes. I used the original geometry, but just yesterday learned that we can zero figures and export from Poser, but I wasn't having a sizing/fitting issue. Let's hold on that actually..... I learned to memorize the figure, clean the target figures cr2 to prepare for conforming, apply the AutoGroup Editor to the mesh and then swapped the geometry lines from the target cr2. So far, it's a simple and sweet process... Even adding the morphs was a snap, all thanks to D3D's scripts.

Pokethru..... There. I said it. Now here is where my questions come into play...

Is pokethru "bad"?!? Is it that pokethru means we messed up somewhere in the process, or is it inevitable? Are we supposed to have morphs to fix it, or are we expected to produce clothing that does not have it at all?!? What should we (the merchants) -expect- be done about it from the users end?!? What do you "civilians" =P expect from us as merchants?!?!? What is considered acceptable and what is not?!? Just asking you guys very generally, what are your personal common fixes for pokethru?!?

When making conforming clothes, I notice that people will add some of the character full body morphs. For instance Pear Figure, Thin, Voluptuous (I am refering to V4) and the like are pretty much all standard. These are the Morphs ++ Full Body Morphs... Is this standard practice, or are THESE the morphs people are expected to use to correct pokethru?!? What other morphs should be added or would you guys recommend?

For my purposes, I saved a few cr2's to use for future use. For this particular example, I used one in which I turned off all fall off zones... Is this bad practice?!? I found that prior to using a cr2 w/ the fall zones, I was getting heavy duty poly fly off. Now w/o them, I get none. Is it dependant on the morph, the mesh, the figure, or is there a standard rule of thumb?!?

Even further, are merchants expected to make "custom corrective" morphs to fix "possible" pokethru???

Any help, advice, suggestions, pleas to the guilty or wicked would be greatly appreciated. I've always wanted to "do well" in this area and finally feel I have the proper tools to do it.

You can see that w/ the same pose, we get different amounts of pokethru. I know that my test suit is "skin" tight, so what should I do to avoid or get less pokethru in my cr2?

Does mesh density have any impact on the amount of pokethru we get in our clothes?

Not being a modeler, my views will be strictly those of a potential customer.

Yes, poke-through is a problem. End of sentence.

Yes, as a consumer, I would prefer that YOU solve it.

That said...

For me it's like breast size on a female companion. Yes, I like them large, but it's by no means a deal breaker either way. If a garment is well designed and gives the character the characteristics that I want, yes, I'll work with poke through. After all, with the morph tool it's not that big a deal any more.

I would suggest that if the solution that you suggest to your customers is to make the body parts invisible (and yes, I do accept that as a solution under certain circumstances... read on...) then you better have the clothing designed so that you CAN make the parts that poke through invisible without it affecting the areas of the character skin that show through the cloth openings. This is especially important in skimpy slutware and in things like tee shirts, where part of the chest is going to show at the top of the neckline.

I would far, far, far, far rather have a male shirt with shoulder poke-through (solvable by making the shoulders invisible) than to have those god-awful cottom ball shoulder bumps that so many modelers include as the kludge to prevent said poke through. That's one where turning the shoulders invisible in the character would be the simple fix for me, instead of having to fiddle with the shape of the shoulders forever in the morph tool or in post work to fix the lousy design of the clothing.

Yes, including morphs in the clothing is another, probably preferable solution. It's one that I use on almost every piece I buy... I run them ALL through Morph Clothing and give them automorphing. For that reason, I pretty much don't care if the designer put any morphs in or not. It's all rock and roll to me. I suspect I'm in the minority in this area, so my realistic advice would be for you to at least include breast morphs in female clothing and muscle morphs in males. Again, I don't personally care.

For me the key is, Did you tell me about the pokethrough issues in the readme, and did you suggest how YOU deal with them as you use your own product. I'm really big into personal responsibility and owning what you do. If you tell me about it, and I agree that the solution makes sense, then it's my problem how well if works. If you keep it a secret, well... I'm going to want my money back.

Is any of this what you were looking for?

Did you apply the V4 magnets to the clothing as outlined in the V4 readme?

BasicWiz, that is EXACTLY what I am looking for, you make a lot of "common" sense =P As a merchant, hearing you mention the "secret" part is scary... What some may think I am keeping secret, I may assume that it is already known. Going to have to beef up my readmes, the general concensus from what I have heard is that "civiliians" don't even read them =/

But to understand you clearly, so long as there IS a fix, and that it is noted and explained how to fix, this is "acceptable"?

It's like bike helmets... We need them to ride to protect us, but we don't stop riding bikes... So long as I provide the helmet, we should be good...

Generally speaking, are the V4 full body morphs "enough" to fix pokethrough?!? Trying to see and repair a need for every type of clothing item, pose situation and design style is too much...

Phil, I have wading thru the forums most the afternoon and have been hearing about magnatize the clothing... Ya know, since I started using Carrara I actually TOTALLY forgot all about that feature, thanks so much for the pointer... To answer the question, nope, did NOT magnatize anything, lol...

As a client/customer who occasially make conforming cloth for my own use I would say that I expect no problems with the arms. Most commercial products don't have any problems with the arm and I would be disappointed otherwise. Other poke throughs is less important and can be fixed with the morphing tool or magnets.

I as a customer prefer no-pokethrough within the range of movement controlled by limits on.    I can accept some pokethrough if I can solve it by hiding the bodypart.  Otherwise I want the merchant to put in the jcm or other method of fixing the pokethrough, such as a morph.

I do animations and fixing pokethrough becomes more of a problem since postworking it out is not an option.

first off, all of the DAZ figures use Joint controlled morphs, (V4 Uses Magnets for this purpose for some of those, but those dont necessarily all transfer over to the clothing perfectly so I still find some jcms are necessary to fix those issues) so in order to avoid pokethrough you pretty much have to create jcms in the clothing to match those morphs if you want to avoid pokethrough.

as far as should pokethrough be acceptable in commercial clothing, I cant speek from experience with any other store but I know DAZ tests for pokethrough and fails anything that has pokethrough when using stock poses with limits on, though they do allow for adjustment morphs if necessary, but every store is different in what they allow. personally I like to see that the merchant makes every effort to avoid pokethrough in their clothing exept in extreme conditions such as limits off posing. I provide JCMs in mine as well as usually providing some general adjustment morphs to loosen the clothing in order to more easily accomodate more extreme poses, and base figure morph combinations. I think it is acceptable to provide hide poses to hide bodyparts on the base figure that wouldn't be seen under the clothing but than that limits texture artists from being able to use transmaps to hide or make translucent parts of the clothing.

"I know DAZ tests for pokethrough and fails anything that has pokethrough when using stock poses with limits on"

How is that possible when there is no cloth, commercial or otherwise that even pass the test of the ordinary stock poses that ships with Poser?

The advantage of making your own cloth is obvious. With tools like Marvelous Designer you go from concept to finish in 10-15 min and when you know how the figure is going to be used it's easy to avoid pokethrough.

Sorry, the stock poses I was referring to are the ones that come with the specific figure.

This is all great and very useful info and insight people, thanks =)

I didnt get to "play" much today, but I am going to try using the jcm's that come w/ V4... I also want to see how using the magnetize poses work.

In studying other peoples clothes, and in "looking" for ways to avoid pokethru, I see that MOST merchants are slick and avoid skin tight clothing altogether. There seems to be "little" use in custom fix morphs, most are just using the V4 Morph++ moprhs. I noticed quite a bit of "belly" fix morphs, but I seem to be "overthinking" the process. If "civillians" are happy and accept fixing the pokethru w/ morphs and by hiding body parts, so long as I can pose the target charcter w/ limits on and witness no pokethru, I "should" be ok..... That's a goal I can work with, lol...

I am "assuming" that most merchants use D3D's scripts to transfer morphs, and that some adjustments are needed?!? Any other utility or script recommendations for the process?!?

I really like hearing about this from an animators view. I would think that most clothes are a nightmare to work with, I have never done any "real" animating, but I know just in simple stills I have to fix pokethru in ONE scene/still.

Again, many, many thanks =)

actually I dont think very many merchants use any scripts for transfering morphs, the transfer programs such as Morphing Clothes do a very nice job but in general its not clean enough for commercial work. most that I know of do it the old fashioned way, either hand sculpting the morph in their modeler, or using magnets in poser (I prefer the hand sculpting route in C4D which has a very nice magnet tool).

As far as making clothes loose, some do I guess, but that can run into its own problems, because tighter clothes tend to more precisely duplicate the figure's joint bends, and it doesn't look realistic for a lot of clothes to be too loose.

I've done the magnets bit a while ago, it worked well, so I may try that again. If MorCloth isnt good enough for commercial work, that's a serious buzzkill =P The "old fashioned way" is treading on the technical side of the lake, and I can't swim there...

"Loose" clothes I see, I have used the term loosely..... I guess I think of the worst case scenario, and try to work with that (if you can learn to drive in NYC, you can drive anywhere). With skin tight clothes, things like stockings, leotards, spandex and stretchies, it will be much harder avoiding pokethru in comparison to stuff like sweaters, hooded sweatshirts, over the boot jeans, and things like that. Not "loose" like Sinbad or baggy pants, but that it doesnt "necessarily" sit on the skin...

For instance, your kimono dress, I would consider "loose"... Formfitting, not tight fitting.

(awesome job btw)

Just asking, not to put anyone on the spotlight, but who are some of the better clothes makers?!?

All opinion I imagine, but what is it about their products that you like and what is it about them that makes them stand out?!?

thanks about the kimono dress, yes its designed to fit like a real dress would with the appropriate amount of thickness, and that required a fair amount of jcms to get it moving properly because of that looseness, particularly in the shoulder collar area and the skirt.

shoulders have to be the hardest part to get right, you pretty much have to do those fixes with jcms. but it helps to have a tool like morph loader pro for studio which allows you to export the figure and the clothing in posed position, and sculpt a morph into the clothing in my modeler specifically for that posed shape, and import it with MLP and have it reverse out the pose deformations to provide a perfect morph for the bent shape. (there is also a tool for poser users that was recently developed which is supposed to do the same thing, its name escapes me at the moment but I have heard good things about it)

the big issue with morphing clothing just like any automatic system is that it works kind of like shrink wrap, which is fine for some things, not so good for others, for example with any of the female morphs where the breasts are much larger or smaller than standard the automatic systems tend to expand and contract the chest of the clothing follow the breasts fine but the area between the breasts tends to look like it's sucked inward because those polys dont move much if at all in the base figure, or like with bodybuilder morphs you get sucking in between the muscle groups. this might be fine to a certain extent with skin tight clothing such as leotards but loose clothing should stretch across those gaps rather than suck into them.

I was under the impression that jcm's come w/ the character, I didn't know or think we could make them... But I'll have to do some research on that it seems to be a HUGE topic w/ regards to clothes...

Attached Link: PoserMorphLoader

This thread has been excellent in demonstrating all the efforts and pitifalls making cloth to sell, to be a 'merchant'. Comparing that to making conforming cloth for your own use it's EASY. You don't have to nervously check everything again and again for pokethru, you don't need to make hundreds of morphs you don't need don't neeed jmcs at all! Most  merchants work days if not weeks on their products and the artistic spontanity get lost in the process. Not to speak of that collecting cloth done by others and render out is more like an activity for little girls, and has nothing to do with being an artist.

Quote - Not to speak of that collecting cloth done by others and render out is more like an activity for little girls, and has nothing to do with being an artist.

I do it because I can create what I want when I want and actually make a living at it, and I like the commmunity, as I would rather hang out with "Non-Artists" who aren't snobs about what they like to do, than people who feel like they have a right to insult other people because of how they choose to express their creative urge.

Sorry if I have insulted anyone but I find it necessary to be a bit audacious to draw attention to the fact that it is really easy to make clothes for your own use. "How can I make my own clothes is the most common question for new Poser users but they are all discouraged by old-timers who assume you want to be a merchant. There is an alternative to merchants and 'customers/civilians' thats all I want to say.

Attached Link: Spanish Princess Tutorial

Hmm, now you are giving me bad conscience. You are right, a fast startup tutorial for beginners is needed. It would need to take up,

1. How to make and texture cloth in Marvelous Designer

2. How to adjust the resulting UVmap in UVmapper

3. The right scale for export and import between MD, Poser and C4d

4. The pro and con of autogroup editor vs obj2cr2.

5. How to fix the impossible tight space between M4 legs.

6. How to retop an existing model and get a head start.

7. How to refine the texture in Bodypaint.

Nothing you can not learn in half a day, if you already know C4D. Of course that will not make you into a merchant. :) But you will have your own clothes.

excellent :) while I am of course very well versed in C4D Im not really up on Marvelous designer so even I would learn something from such a tutorial.

Yes, the very core of this thread is that I NEED to keep things artistically spontaneous, or else it's drudgery...

I don't want to create something in the flow of artisty only to be ridiculed and humilated, understanding of course that I am a merchant, and would like to think I make, at the very least, creative and descent content.

Pokethru, can be a real killer, I want to know the ins and outs, and whats acceptable and whats not. Whats good, whats bad, how come and how to prevent. As Hook would say, "Good Form"...

Question..... What's the difference in clothes "good enough for your own use" versus clothes that are of good "commercial quality"?!?

The MorCloth scripts to me as someone rather inexperienced in this area seem like a GODSEND, I am curious wdupre, why you think the morphs arent good enough for commercial content? I was under the impression that MANY merchants use it just for that reason?!?

And I'd like to the know the pros and cons of the AutoGroup Editor vs obj2cr2, as I just bought the the AutoGroup Editor. If you could elaborate on those, I'd really appreciate it.

I just started making cloth a couple of months ago still I have made some observations.

The cloth made by the very best for instance the guys who work as employees for Daz is very good, pockethru is kept to a minimum and the mesh is almost uncanny perfect. Still, if you compare their work to the real world they are somewhat lacking in the design and fashion department. My guess is that if you are making more cool looking cloth and texture, that will outweight any minor deficits. After all that's what apparel exist for isn't it?

I started to use the AutoGroup Editor and then changed to obj2cr2 as it is more accurate. But after a while I returned to AutoGroup Editor. Why? Because with obj2cr2 you have only one shot, either it works or it do not. The AutoGroup Editor is more forgiving in that you can do a manual correction of the result in your modeler program, and experiment with different donors.

The main differens with commercial clothes vs for own use is tons of morphs and magnets, and hours of corrections of pocketthru. Very boring.

Ive made ONE conforming suit and it was a total nitemare. Personally, I liked it and thought it was high on the cool factor, but I dunno =P Morph and pokethru wise, I went overboard, I purposely sought poses that were extreme and solved the pokethru. I never got any negative feedback other than lack of sales, lol... I did the morphs w/ magnets, added the Morph++ morphs and made many custom corrective morphs... Pokethru wasnt an issue, so I guess there is more to making content than pokethru, LOL!!!

All the feedback and response is greatly appreciated, keep it coming =)

I'm back for another round =)

Putting all together, here are the main keys:

I would suggest that if the solution that you suggest to your customers is to make the body parts invisible (and yes, I do accept that as a solution under certain circumstances... read on...) then you better have the clothing designed so that you CAN make the parts that poke through invisible without it affecting the areas of the character skin that show through the cloth openings.

Lets say for example I make a super thick triple fleece V-Neck sweater that droops over V4's wrists, and matching pants that hang to the floor and cover her ankles. Lets assume V4 is covered, and the only visible parts of her are her head, feet, toes and hands. If a set like this provided hide morphs for the body, would that be ok?!?

I expect no problems with the arms.

Assuming the same sweater, pants combo that hides her arms... Is "hiding" the arms the solution, or do you expect that there be no pokethru w/ the arms visible?!?

I as a customer prefer no-pokethrough within the range of movement controlled by limits on. I can accept some pokethrough if I can solve it by hiding the bodypart.

This "seems" like the answer to my previous question, but what do you mean by "some"?!?!? If the body is hidden, and there is none visible, is that not enough?

in order to avoid pokethrough you pretty much have to create jcms in the clothing to match those morphs if you want to avoid pokethrough.

Are the jcms of the character something of a "problem area indicator"?!?

DAZ tests for pokethrough and fails anything that has pokethrough when using stock poses with limits on, though they do allow for adjustment morphs if necessary

I am assuming body parts visible or not doesnt matter at Daz?!? So hiding "really isnt" an option???

I think it is acceptable to provide hide poses to hide bodyparts on the base figure that wouldn't be seen under the clothing

Is this everyones "offical take"?!? Is it different at the stores?!?

Just wanted to make sure of this. Going to spend some time reasearching jcms, what they are, used for, and all that. I did try the Morph Loader, did not work, but I'm sure that was me... Checked out the other script, and that seems nice.

Another thing I wanted to ask... Even though we check for the same things when doing clothes, is it a different process if you use Poser versus Studio, and even further, when you use different characters?!? Does Miki 3 use JCM's?!? What about magnetizng for M4?!?

With the test suit I am doing above, I have made great progress in fixing the pokethru. I went back and added the falloffs. Most of the issues I was having were caused by bad grouping. After fixing in the AutoGroup Editor it conformed much better when combined w/ the magnetizing pose. By hiding some of the body parts (the feet and the shoulders) and w/ limits on, I have posed her using all of the "General" poses that come w/ V4 and was able to avoid 95% of the pokethru w/o issue. I don't know if avoid is the correct term, but that skin wasn't showing thru the outfit was good. Pokethru was really only an issue in the forearms, and I see now that the problem is in the design. The elbow area does NOT have enough polys to support the movement of a bend, and would cut into her elbow when posed. Hiding the shoulders/elbows "fixed" the pokethru, but in the future I would make sure the suit can take the bending. Another problem area was the thighs, as they poke thru when she was posed in a sitting, kneeling style. The transfered morphs, made using MorCloth, worked great to adjust and fix this. I only added the Morphs++ and the JCM's from V4 to the suit.

This is only a test of the emergency broadcast system, but I am using it as a study of the process for making clothes =P