Modeling clothing for simulation

[stevecullum]

I'm wondering what the 'correct' work flow is for creating realistic shirts and jeans etc.. for characters that will later have clothFX or Syflex applied?

I understand for Syflex I would need to create more poly's for more creases etc.., but is that the same for clothFX?

Would I also need to model in any larger folds or would it be best to keep the objects smooth and let the simulation take care of the creases?

As you can probably guess I've never attempted character clothing before, so any pointers are fully appreciated ;)

[Dodgy]

I would have two cloth objects. A high poly one which is the rendered version, and the low poly one which should be a fairly even distribution of polys. Parent the high to the low and use Metalink to control the high. You can then model 'permanent' creases into the high poly one if necessary.

For the collision object, copy your body and cut off any parts which aren't going to affect the cloth object, like head/hands/legs. Parent it to the animated body. You can also use merge points to reduce small polys.

Try the sim on the low poly one, and see how it deforms. If you have problem areas, knife/bandsaw to add more details as needed. Because it's not the rendered shirt, it really doesn't matter what geometry it has as long as it works.

Also, on the high one, you could paint finer folds/creases using zbrush/3d coat and add that as a bump map. Then use the stressmap shader to add crinkles at the areas which deform most. Here's an example of that at work. It gives the effect of a higher poly sim for less cost.

[stevecullum]

Thanks Dodgy.

This was my first thoughts on the approach, but in tests I was getting weird buckling where the modelled in folds creased the wrong way. Some further experiments are needed I think to find a good balance of calculation times and realism. Maybe there is a way through nodes to link the MDD, weightmaps and displacements so only the folds appear at given place and time.

EDIT - could do with that stress map shader as a node!