As I recently admitted in the Blender Forum, I think I've improved a lot with my modeling in Blender, however, I still have a ways to go. In particular to do the finer details  that make some models really stand out. Until I improve enough to do that, it looks like I'm going  to have to use textures and bump mapping to achieve what I want.

To that end, I hope I can get some advice from those of you who know how to do what I want to do. The image above is a dynamic dress for Roxie I just made in Blender. I want to add piping to it, which wouldn't be a problem if the dress were conforming.

So I want the piping on the clothing to be where the yellow lines appear in this second image. I've been told that this is doable with the use of a bump map. Can someone show me what I need to do to get that effect in Poser?

ya can make a bump map in gimp just paint it on there.

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not sure about Poser but in most app's normal maps are better then bumps.
to make a normal map ya need a app that will paint normal maps.
don't know if gimp will.
or In zBrush I sculpt it and save as a normal map and or a vector maps.
guess Blender can also.

Hello Earl,
I fear you are going to run into the same issue either way.

When going dynamic, the cloth polygons will strech and twist when bend, but so will the uv map.
Therefore, the texture, be it in displacement or bump or normal map will also strech and deform, just like the polygons would.
Putting these things in can be a pain and lots of trial and error.

If it was me?
I'd make the dress conforming and W-Mapped.
And when W-Map painting carefully avoid the area's where you put the piping.
And take care to put the same weight on the vertex of the piping to minimise streching.
Certainly on the side-side and twist maps.
The bend map is less sensible to this streching.

This is for ALL workflows, modeling them in, or bump/displacement/normal mapping them in.

Going dynamic, is going to the unknown.
You"ll never know the poses the dress in gonna end up in at end user level.

Going conforming, you keep the control (and quality) with you.
The dress is rather short, so W-Mapping it should be fairly easy.

Edited :

What I would certainly do in this case, is give the piping (your yellow lines) a different material zone and color them differently in Blender.
That way you can easy do some tests and see how the material zone behaves before engaging in texturing.

The problem with conforming the dress is I'd lose the realistic  way the dress looks in the cloth room. Plus, I haven't really mastered conforming dresses that well.

Build the mesh in Blender.
Assign the materials in Blender.
Build the groups in Blender.
=> Tip : The dress has to have the same groups and internal group names as Roxie for all groups covered by clothing.

=> Tip : rThigh and lThigh groups may NOT touch.
Deepen the hip group between them to keep them separated. => THIS is IMPORTANT.

Goto Poser and use the fitting room.
Do NOT do the FIT.

Load the Prop, load Roxie and click create figure.
Select the bones required.
Tip : For a dress like this?
Hip to neck
Exclude head and eyes

Arms up to and including hands (not the fingers)
And lower up to and including both thigh

Shins feet and toes can be excluded.

Select the Morphs you want tin the dress.
DO NOT use the AUTOGROUP function.
Check : ZERO figure.
Click OK

Go back to the Pose room.
Delete the original object file.

Select the newly created Dress and click conform to and select Roxie.

Save the dress to library.

That's it in a nutshell.

Edited : If all goes well, only the hip-thigh W-Maps need some repainting in Bend, twist and side-side

wouldn't a dress in real life "the cloth polygons will strech and twist when bend"also ?

Yes, feel your pants streching when you go to sit down.

The cloth streches but the seam stay firmly put. (Hopefullly)

I don't really worry too much about texture stretching.

Quote -  I've been told that this is doable with the use of a bump map.

White is high, black is low. Draw the height. Ignore the bit about conforming. Regardless of whether it stretches or not, cloth does bend, and the bump map will bend with it.

Some dynamic clothing I've seen assigns seams to the soft decorated group, and that appears to work quite well. If you choose to model the seams, give them their own material zone so they'll be easy to select in the cloth room.

When a texture doesn't have a texture, I do this dirty little trick  - just add your texture map to the bump map and adjust appropriately, and bingo, you're all set.  Works for me everytime I need to "cheat".

 

a old game trick back when file size was minimal.sony 1 days.
ya merge the bump and texture togeather and just use a texture.
& even thou ya didn't have a bump ,it looked like ya had a bump.

Until I get the texturing down, I have to rely on geometric designs in the mesh I guess.

Use displacement/bump mapping, but align the mapping with the vertices on the piped areas - don't just draw them free hand. Make the piping a separate material zone so that the user can add it to the soft decorated group in the material room.

Very pretty style for the dress.

If you still need help and you'd like to send me the UVs I can put together a couple texture maps for you to see how it needs to be done.  Up to you.  PM me if you need the help and i'll give you my email.  I'm gunna be doing nothing til I get answers to my morphing questions anyway.