dForce Dress Situation

Starkdog

I'm making a dress like what is in the picture below.  Now, looking at the navy blue trim in the reference image, I could keep the modeled dress flat, or I could extrude and roll the edges to physically give the dress hem some actual thickness.  Here's my line of thoughts:

Flat Style:

Would make dForce setup easier (no need for additional modifiers).

Could use bump/displacement maps to "create" the illusion of trim depth.

However, it does look rather flat, depending on available geometry.

 

Modeled Style:

Would need to add additional dForce settings to trims to keep semi-rigid.

With additional polygons added, can take longer to simulate, and possibly create additional collisions and weird bunching.

 

What version would you rather see in a product?

Thanks,

-David

Sera

I really dislike flat clothes and add ons. I don't mind fiddling with dforce settings though, so I vote for the modeled stuff. 

MelissaGT

I prefer to see all those details modeled in, especially if a user wants to use a tiled fabric shader to customize the outfit a bit (you'd lose any piping/seams if those details were added in via displacement). Plus material zones! YES! I really appreciate it when a clothing maker adds those details. Too much stuff is coming out these days that are just flat cutous and tubes and it's not cool, especially when they still command a premium price. (That being said, I absolutely don't mind spending the money for the added effort needed to include those fine details - it's super worth it for quality.)

Richard Haseltine

You could always add a morph to roll the edges after a dForce simualtion was run, which is what some PAs do - mada has posted a tutorial on the process.

Hylas

I have literally no modelling experience so take everything I write with a big grain of salt.

But can´t you model the trim with actual geometry and have dforce only affect the skirt, leaving everything above the waist completely unaffected?

 

Artini

If you really like Flat Style (which, I do not like at all), try to create a 3D model,

that is flat in reality, like paper hat, origami or similar.

It will be much easier to accept such object in 3D, as well.

Starkdog

Hello all,

Thanks for the feedback.  I have seen a bunch of "flat" dForce items out there, but I want my dForce creations to be different and more realistic with piping, seams, etc.  In the first picture below, is an example of a bandeau-style dress I made.  It does have extruded/rolled edges at the armpit level, under-breast/skirt transition, and bottom hem.  I even added in seams on the sides, as seen in the next 2 pictures.  The dress is 6324 polys.  I'm still tweaking a bit to get the bottom hem to behave, as it looks like it's trying to unfurl, in the third picture.  I even made the sandals too, but those go with something else :).

My questions are:

1). What more could I do to get a better bottom hem drape? (This was only a 30-frame simulation).

2). Is this a preferred UV map, or would it be better broken down by material zone and better flattened/aligned?

3). Would anyone be interested in this dress/set?

 

Thanks,

David

RGcincy

30 frames should not be an issue. Looks to me like something is holding the edge up so it's not draping completly.Can you show a close up of the simulated hem with the wireframe turned on?  Also, try a simulation with self-collide turned off to see what happens.

Starkdog

Hello RGcincy,

Great to hear from you!  I have attached a wireframe with the simulation settings of the BottomTrim material.  I have also included a detailed view from Hexagon.  The trim is tucked under and slightly extruded upwards to give the appearance of a proper hem (as seen in the purple and blue).  I don't know if this extra geometry is "too heavy" for the dress, or perhaps I'm overlooking something.  I have been pouring through your tutorials, and it has really helped me.  I just wish my patience could keep up with all the ideas I have...

Thanks,

-David

 

Mada

The problem with trimming geo like that is there's nothing to hold it up and it falls out when you simulate. I use Add-ons to keep edges stable

Starkdog

Hello Mada,

Thank you for the reply and the YouTube video!  I'll have to watch it again to get all the finer details; but that does look quite involved, yet the results are very nice.  Looking back at my model, the bottom trim is kind of clunky looking.  I might just keep the thickened upper chest trim and the waist trim, and leave off ther bottom trim and have a "hollow" skirt part.  I will take your advice to heart.  One other thing, which UV mapping is preferred for such a dress?  I do have a UV map posted above.  Would that style work, or would it be more "professional" to have the different parts seperate?

Thanks,

-David 

Mada

It would be easier to texture if it was all one piece :)

Artini

That's why I love clothes created by Mada.

Artini

@Starkdog: the dress is too simplistic. I think, it is good as a practice in modelling.

Look at the dForce dresses created by Mada, to see a good examples.

 

Richard Haseltine

Mada said:

The problem with trimming geo like that is there's nothing to hold it up and it falls out when you simulate. I use Add-ons to keep edges stable

Thanks, I'd forgotten you actually pre-rolled the returns and use add-ons to hold them stitched-up.

Hylas

Starkdog said:

 

3). Would anyone be interested in this dress/set?

TBH there's a lot of dresses out there, many of them for free, many of them dForce compatible. It would have to be quite special to pique my interest

RGcincy

The trim is tucked under and slightly extruded upwards to give the appearance of a proper hem (as seen in the purple and blue).  I don't know if this extra geometry is "too heavy" for the dress, or perhaps I'm overlooking something.  

Thanks, helpful to see the original mesh.

As Mada said, create an add-on. It's actually quite easy to do and helps with rolled edges. You can even test it by doing a small section first and seeing how it looks. (One of my examples mentions a script where you can select two vertices, add them to the add-on, select two more, then repeat as much as needed. Also I think the add-on works only on the same mesh not across meshes.)

Even with dForce I find most clothing  doesn't drape like real-word clothing. Too flat, not enough wrinkles and folds or they appear in the wrong place. dForce can add to a poor look as it will pull down and flatten clothing items unless you get the right surface settings and weight node maps. But I believe there is a real need for more realistic clothing. Some vendors achieve it or close to it while others are far from it.