I've heard a number of people mention marvelous designer here and thought I'd at least give the 30 day trail a chance. See if a could make some of the clothes I want for poser.  But I was wondering what the learning curve was. Is the program fairly intuitive or do I need to spend weeks on tutorials? Will I be able to tell that this is the program for me in those 30 days or will I need to devote all my waking time to become familiar enough with the program to make a decision? I know that this is to some extent this can vary from person to person, but perhaps your impressions can help me decide if I want to spend some time on it or not.

If you already know a little about sewing, I think the program is super easy to understand. That being said, I've seen many people make basic clothing in a matter of minutes without any sewing or extensive 3D background. The UI is pretty intuitive to me. You'd surely be able to tell within 30 days if you like it or not.

I followed their first video and had a similar outfit made in just minutes the first time.

Wow, I have never seen this, looks very nice.

The problem I read is the way MD export the models ( triangles everywhere and a non uniform mesh.)

So how does MD do with making colars, layers, trims, etc. Making a dynamic T-shirt with no features is not hard to do as is. It's when you want to make say a dress shirt or a suit jacket for either a male or female character with collars, lapels, cuffs, pockets with flaps and or make it look like it buttons down the front that things become a lot more time consumming in the typcial 3D app of your choice. Granted I have been buried trying to do several projects at once plus clean up and organize a couple of my runtimes. So I haven't had the time to go study this software...yet.

I can't model so MD is very helpful for me. I know little about sewing but I can look at clothing and figure out where a seem goes.

 Yes MD is triangles, and that's better for poser dynamics. I often take the the finished simulation cloth and import that into poser, because MD simulation is way faster.

 I make crap in MD, but I make worse in other 3d modelers.

Marvelous Designer has annonced that a version where you can choose quad or tris output will be released in April.

"collars, lapels, cuffs, pockets with flaps..etc"

Marvelous Designer doesn't do eveything. You still need to use you prefered 3D modeler. It does a lot more that you ever imagine though.

I did not see where you can export it out?

You can export .obj, and it has tools to help you export to poser scale. If that's what you mean SAM3D.

Attached Link: Marvelous Designer User's Gallery

Actually, it depends on how detailed you want to work.  Check out some of these examples of  collars, lapels, cuffs and pockets worked in MD:

http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/gallery/296/leather-suit

http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/gallery/288/trench-coat

http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/gallery/280/the-future-is-here

Rosemaryr,

Those are nice examples and would provide a huge boost in the Poser style and taste department, not to mention a more natural look. But remember that all the examples at the marvelousdesigner site are MD only. To be practical they must be transformed to conforming clothes inside Poser. That is something else entirely.

Quote - Marvelous Designer has annonced that a version where you can choose quad or tris output will be released in April.

"collars, lapels, cuffs, pockets with flaps..etc"

Marvelous Designer doesn't do eveything. You still need to use you prefered 3D modeler. It does a lot more that you ever imagine though.

It can, however, make all the items in that quoted list.

See this example:

This one was entirely modelled in Marvellows Designer (I believe by Amakyn) and rendered in Daz Studio. (Yes, that's V4 you're looking at)

"It can, however, make all the items in that quoted list."

Not so it works inside Poser...

They don't work as conforming clothing in Poser without re-topology, which some folks are working on.  They do work well as dynamic clothing. I've done it.

It all depends on -how- you what to work with them in Poser. Shrug  Just showing that it's not a totally bleak prospect for Poser users.

I assume PhilC's Obj2CR2 could convert the obj to conforming if that what you want.

I myself perfer dynamic, unless I have a group of characters standing around, or sitting where a table blocks the view of the skirt portion. Then for speed I would probably look for something conforming.

Rosemaryr, "Just showing that it's not a totally bleak prospect for Poser users"

I never said that it offer bleak prospect for Poser users, on the contrary it is the best thing that has happened Poser since sliced bread. If you see in my free stuff I have several Marvelous Designer models both conforming and dynamic. I only point out that you must know how to use a 3D modeler tool.

And that goes for dynamic clothing too If you are planning to go beyond the absolut basic, ie make dynamic cloth with "thickness and pockets, beltloops and modelled seams" (estherau), etc.

You most definitely can make complex lapels, pockets, hems and seams in Marvelous Designer that can be used in Poser. The only thing it isn't good at making is items like small lacing, which is just simpler and faster to make in a 3D modeller with curves.

I admit . .. I was impressed and considering it to make commercial dynamic clothes ... but $700 is a bit steep for me.  And  just to make  for my own enjoyment  ... $200 is a little too steep too.  Am I being unreasonable?

I am also an MD2 user and I really love the program. It is very intuitive to use, even for someone with no experience in sewing clothing. It is also easy enough to use your own avatar and poses, and get everything in the render program you want to use it in.  I have no problem with the way I work with the program, although it might sound pretty tedious. But exporting and importing between Daz studio, MD2 and Vue esprit goes so quickly that I have no issue with it.

Just to give an idea of how I work with MD2: I will start with exporting a T-posed character, then load that into MD2 as the avatar, make the clothing I want and texture it. Then I go back to Daz Studio and pose my character + export it. Import the pose in MD2 and watch the avatar move into the new pose, while the clothing drapes with the new pose. Then I export the finished draped clothing and import it into Daz Studio on the character I saved from before. And then I export to Vue esprit. Works fine for me, and once you got an T-pose saved for one character you can reuse that T-pose for any new clothing you want to make for the character.

Certainly saves me from buying clothing for my 3D people, plus I can use any morphs on my characters, the clothing will always fit. :)

Thanks everyone for your input. I really appreciate it. Now I just have to find the money to get it ;)

After reading through this here, I must admit, that I'm really curious about MD now =)

Just one question tho .. Is it possible to import already modelled cloth props (dynamic cloths) from Poser into MD and have a play, like to adjust, drape, or whatever else, in MD then, and perhaps re-save and finally import them back into Poser?

I don't believe so.

But there is freebie clothes to play with, and it's really quick and easy to make something crappy just  to play with

Quote - .. Is it possible to import already modelled cloth props (dynamic cloths) from Poser into MD and have a play, like to adjust, drape, or whatever else, in MD then, and perhaps re-save and finally import them back into Poser?

No, MD will only drape stuff that was made in MD as flat cloth shapes stitched together. And it will only drape them on one 'avatar' object (or several objects contained in a single avatar file).

So you can't just pick a few objects in a scene to clothify and pick a few others to collide with, as you can in Poser. Maybe that'll change in the future, development is moving along fairly swiftly.

Ok, I see.

Thanks for the answers, "GeneralNutt" and "obm890" :)

I wonder if DAZ knows about this program. It sounds like it simulates similarly to their own plugin.

I think they know about MD2. There is a thread about it in the forums at DAZ, and there has been talk about a possible plugin for Daz Studio 4 where you could import your clothing created with MD2 into DS4 and use it as dynamic clothing in there. But as far as I know that is just a rumor at the moment.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. It seems like their visual editor is turning out to be vaporware-but, who knows.