Welding garments

rames44

Apologies in advance if this question reeks of noob-ness, but I have done VERY little in terms of actual modeling.

We know that one of the things that can make a garment, well, "have problems" with dForce is if its various parts aren't actually welded together correctly, intersect, etc.

Let's suppose I want to take an offending garment and modify its mesh to remove some of the issues.  I can see how self-intersections could probably be handled in Geometry Editor by deleting quads.  At least in some cases.

But if a garment has two pieces that need to be welded together, is there a way to do that without losing weight maps, rigging, etc?  I mean, I know you could export the garment's mesh as an OBJ to, say, Blender or Hexagon and edit it, but how would you then bring the modified mesh back to Daz without screwing up all the weights and rigging?

SixDs

There is also the issue of "breaking" the UV mapping, if the product uses them, if adding or deleting polygons. The rule of thumb is therefore to avoid changing polygons when editing an existing mesh in a modelling program, regardless of what you are doing.

rames44

Yes, you certainly do have to worry about textures. Those I understand how to deal with. It’s the rigging and weight mapping that I’m hoping to find a straightforward solution to.

willowitch

I'm currently making a pair of coveralls, and I'm struggling with how to construct the garment so that it will not have dForce issues. I'm working back and forth between Hexagon and ZBrush. Hexagon has a 'welding' command that takes two objects and makes them in to one, but that doesn't appear to be the same as 'welding' a vertex. Am I correct that if it isn't a welded vertex, then the parts may separate when dForce is applied? How do I avoid manifold edges while welding the daylights out of all the parts? I don't want to run up the geometry by making every piece of the garment doublesided, but I have issues trying to weld anything that needs to be doublesided (for example, a collar) to the main garment that is singlesided. Suggestions? Do manifold edges matter if I'm not 3D printing?

And yes, in Hexagon, the minute you weld a vertex, all the material and shading zones for the entire model are lost. Sickleyield has a good tutorial on how to transfer a rig from a character to a garment. It appears pretty quick and easy. I haven't seen anything about being able to transfer the weight maps.

nicstt

It isn't welding a vertex.

You need to make two as one; (no not marry )

You need to be careful when connecting parts together, it can get complicated, and cause issues if not done correctly.

You can also use weightmaps in Dforce, I haven't so far used them so no clue, but there are threads in the forums.