I have managed to make my first few clothing items, namely briefs and  an armless t-shirt, for vicky 4. I used Silo 2 for modeling, basically it worked. But some things are still unclear to me.

1.) Is it better to refine the model at the end, for the final tweaking? Or is it better to keep the control cage, for creating morphs and changing things?

2.) I wanted the shirt to have visible seams where the fabric parts met. But I did not find a good way to archive this. How can I do this? Extrusion, break the model, displacement painting?

3.) If the model is to be conforming, should it have a second mesh layer for thickness?

I expect different people to do it in different ways, but it would be helpfull to know why you do it the one or the other way.

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

I don't know about Silo, but I think most modellers will be consistent in the way they apply subdivision - meaning you can alter your low resolution model, subdivide and it will be usable as a morph. If subdivision changes vertex order, it won't work. Try it on a simple test piece and see. The thing with seams and creases is to have enough polygons, since Poser will over-smooth things and what looks acceptable in your modeller won't necessarily work in Poser. Take a look at the screen shot, showing where the upper of a boot meets the sole. Try to make your seam "valleys" trapeziodal in cross-section: a polygon for each slope, and a polygon for the base (the two I have here is overkill, and is due to the way I made the model). Don't make a V-shaped seam, because Poser will flatten it out. You don't usually need a complete second layer, unless it's something like a coat which may be opened to show the lining. To get thickness you can usually "turn over" the edge so there's a row of polygons on the inside of the model, which is enough to give the impression you want. Too many polys will inflate your file sizes, bog Poser down and make morphs harder to make.

Thanks for the answer, English Bob. Just to clarify, I do know that it's possible to keep the control cage, and that changes there will be usable as morphs. The question was more if I have to refine the mesh for modeling seams, creases and other details or if I should try to do this all without refinement.

Your picture above seems not to be modeled as SDS for example, otherwhise the crease would be smoothed, right?

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "refine" - but it may answer your question if I say that I did more work on that mesh after I'd subdivided it; one reason was to keep the crease sharp, yes.

DO NOT REFINE. lol. If you intend on using any changes you do as a morph, refining the control mesh in Silo is not the way to go. You will be telling Silo to turn the subdivided mesh into a permanent alteration. This will add the extra polys needed to achieve the smoothness of that subdivision.  If you don't know why that's bad, it's because it will mean the object will no longer have the vertex count of the original and the morph will NOT work.

Now, if you're modeling something outright, sure, subdivide and refine if you need to do that. Whatever gets the model made.

For morphs, you never refine (I personally don't subdivide when I make my morphs...so I don't make mistakes). 

Reading what I wrote, I can sum it up this way:

Low res control cage - subdivided and refined creates a high res control cage. So if you're making morphs and you feel you have to subdivide, that's fine...just don't refine the subdivison.

I think you got me wrong here. I do know that a further level of subdivison will not work for morphing. I wanted to know if I should work the details of the clothes on the refined mesh or if I should try to make them without refinement.

I will have the higher poly count in Poser nevertheless. If I want to get what I see, I have to export the subdivided mesh anyway - so the number of polygons is not an issue.

It would be nice to have a render subdivided option within Poser, if Firefly is Renderman-compliant we should see a speedup. But that's another story.......

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori. 

I think it's your wording.

Refined mesh is the problem. If you're asking should you work on it while subdivided, I would say - personally - no. If you want to work on it that way, that's fine. Refined mesh in silo is not what you want to work on for morphs.

Now if you're just making a model that you intend to bring to Poser some day and use as clothing props or something, yeah sure. Knock yourself out. I still would work on the lowest levels but once you've refined something, it becomes the lowest level so I guess it all depends on where you'd like to start. I refine my mesh at the final step not the outset. That's me though.

AH...detailing. Okay, Detail the low res res I think. You'll probably want to subdivided (and refine) the details anyway, so that just saves you from doing it twice.

That's the shirt so far. Tomorrow I will make folds on the upper part, then I will try to rig it. Probably no work of art, but my first serious try in cloth modeling. I am quite happy so far.

I work subdivided, because I can see poke-throughs only in the subdivided mesh - it's a bit smaller than the low-res version, and the shirt is very close to the body.

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
-"Amazing Grace" Hopper

Avatar image of me done by Chidori.