Marvelous Designer 7 Released

drzap

wolf359 said:

drzap said:

Who said MD was only good for stills?  This couldn't be further from the truth.  I know of many animation studios that have a MD to Maya pipeline for video game and film productions.  MD is used extensively in wardrobe production in some of the top animated movies.

I have seen MD"runway models" walking with cloth sims on youtube  so how does MD export
an ANIMATED mesh?? MDD or Alembic Cache??

How does one bring the MD animated mesh back into studio
if Daz studio has no native MDD or Alembic import??

I don't know anything about DS.  I know professional pipeline usually includes designing the garment in MD, exporting it to the main application (Maya) where it is retopologized  (MD geometry is very animation unfriendly) and simulated using the native nCloth.  There is also a way for MD to import /export Alembic and Maya or 3dsMax geometry cache and of course C4D can use MDD.

drzap

"How does one bring the MD animated mesh back into studio
if Daz studio has no native MDD or Alembic import??"

If I am familiar with your pipeline, you need not bring it back in to Studio at all.  The draping can be the final step in the animation process and can be cached directly to C4D for rendering afterward.  You animate the figure, then drape the clothing to your animation.

 

agent unawares

MD could always export folds. Now it can also export modeled stitching.

wolf359 said:

drzap said:

Who said MD was only good for stills?  This couldn't be further from the truth.  I know of many animation studios that have a MD to Maya pipeline for video game and film productions.  MD is used extensively in wardrobe production in some of the top animated movies.

I have seen MD"runway models" walking with cloth sims on youtube  so how does MD export
an ANIMATED mesh?? MDD or Alembic Cache??

How does one bring the MD animated mesh back into studio
if Daz studio has no native MDD or Alembic import??

http://www.versluis.com/2015/03/how-to-export-garment-animations-from-marvelous-designer-for-use-in-daz-studio/

OBJ sequence.

RAMWolff

Beat578 said:

Edit: @RAMWolff: Yes you can import OBJ and drape them with a function called "import OBJ as cloth". You can drape it, move it around. I rarely used that function because it seemed to cause lot's of troubles (exploding clothes again). It's not as easy as it sounds and results depend a lot on the quality of the modeled cloth itself. It's bit unpredictable.  I didn't test it in the newest releases, mabe they fixed some of the issues. But if the cloth is modeled nicely, you can even combine clothes you bought at the DAZ store with cloth you creat in MD itself and drape both to a matching pose. 

Hi, This is a pair of bell bottom jeans I made in ZBrush.  I worked really hard to get the folds right and created a bunch of morphs but then it came to JCM's to get the pants to look right when the legs were bent, off to the side and all that so I thought a good draping program like MD would be very useful for creating those more quickly than making them myself in ZBrush as I'm stickler for detail.  I'd also like to know if there is a way to freeze parts of the cloth so it stays where I want it to stay.  The pants have back pockets, real ones and any other draping program has them either sliding off or they look really droopy so I'd love to be able to freeze the back buttocks area and have them remain stiff or at least is good shape rather than like their dripping off of the pants!  lol  Thank you!

ben98120000

Beat578 said: 

One thing to the cool new featrures in MD: 

Buttons and Zipper and those things are very very cool and fast, If you like to create non conforming cloth for stills. If you intend to create conforming cloth in DAZ and use them as morph targets (For example you model a shirt open, and use the one with the closed buttons as morph) - just forget about it. It won't work. The closed buttons have different mesh than the open ones, so you won't be able to load that mesh as morph target (it won't match). If you like to do opening zippers for example, you have to close the jacket with pins, and then open the pins one by one to create the morph targets. 

So: YES, MD is great for modeling cloth, easy and very fast for stills, but all the gadets are pretty useless if you intend to go a set further and creatre conforming cloth with morph targets. 

Hope this helps a bit. 

Cheers Beat

Making open - close, button - unbutton morphs works just fine now.

marble

I love the way that the drapes seems to detect the layers of clothing beneath the coat. Such a pity that DAZ Studio still only has collision detection for only one object (usually, of course, the body of the figure) and not for any further layers of clothing.

Beat578

Hi Ben. Cool thats good news, I didn't Try that out in version 7 yet. Looks great, and will be Helpful for sure.

@RAMWolff: Well, if you clothify your ZBrush Model, i don't think you will get the results your opting for. You can pin things, you can make fabrics stiff, you can even select polys that won't change during simulation (so you keep your nice folds while posing, creating additional effects). But this only works with patterns created in MD itself. Until now, it was not possible with imported objects. Those where just converted into one piece of cloth that would be draped then, with no option to stiffen or rearrange certain parts of the model. I don't think that changed with the new version. But you really could create it the other way round: You can (very easily) create a cool jeans in md, drape it, now even make coll stiches and pockets and everything, and then export them to ZBrush for additional details. That's the way I would prefer. Then from ZBrush you take it into DAZ Studio for rendering. You can also import some things as OBJ into MD and add them to your cloth. For example, you can make a belt, imprting the buckle as OBJ and draping the belt around. Gives you stunning results as well. 

I try to do as much in MD as i could because i like to create all those morphs i add to my freeware stuff (hanging, folding and laying on the floor morphs for those cloth). So i always have the problem that i could not change geometry elswhere or it would not mach anymore. But its still amazing how much detail you can add in MD itself, working with patterns that you vary in thikness, stiffnes and so on.  

kyoto kid

marble said:

I love the way that the drapes seems to detect the layers of clothing beneath the coat. Such a pity that DAZ Studio still only has collision detection for only one object (usually, of course, the body of the figure) and not for any further layers of clothing.

...one of the other "knock your socks off" improvments I hope they make.

drzap

Beat578 said:

Hi Ben. Cool thats good news, I didn't Try that out in version 7 yet. Looks great, and will be Helpful for sure.

@RAMWolff: Well, if you clothify your ZBrush Model, i don't think you will get the results your opting for. You can pin things, you can make fabrics stiff, you can even select polys that won't change during simulation (so you keep your nice folds while posing, creating additional effects). But this only works with patterns created in MD itself. Until now, it was not possible with imported objects. Those where just converted into one piece of cloth that would be draped then, with no option to stiffen or rearrange certain parts of the model. I don't think that changed with the new version. But you really could create it the other way round: You can (very easily) create a cool jeans in md, drape it, now even make coll stiches and pockets and everything, and then export them to ZBrush for additional details. That's the way I would prefer. Then from ZBrush you take it into DAZ Studio for rendering. You can also import some things as OBJ into MD and add them to your cloth. For example, you can make a belt, imprting the buckle as OBJ and draping the belt around. Gives you stunning results as well. 

I try to do as much in MD as i could because i like to create all those morphs i add to my freeware stuff (hanging, folding and laying on the floor morphs for those cloth). So i always have the problem that i could not change geometry elswhere or it would not mach anymore. But its still amazing how much detail you can add in MD itself, working with patterns that you vary in thikness, stiffnes and so on.  

You can try creating a base mesh and retopologizing all your morphs to the base mesh.  That way they will have the exact same topology of the base mesh and allow you to morph to and from your targets.  For example, if your button morphs are a different topology from your original buttons, simply retop them in zbrush so that they match using your original buttons as a base.

wolf359

"I love the way that the drapes seems to detect the
 layers of clothing beneath the coat. 
Such a pity that DAZ Studio still only
 has collision detection for only one object
 (usually, of course, the body of the figure)
 and not for any further layers of clothing."

Hi this is incorrect information.

The Daz DCC  can recognize & Simulate multiple layers as we clearly see here
with the white undergarment beneath the grey one 

it even has settings to let you simulate the layers seqentially or concurrently.

 

.

agent unawares

They're talking about normal collision for smoothing. -cough-nobodyusesDCC-cough-

ben98120000

RAMWolff said:

Beat578 said:

Edit: @RAMWolff: Yes you can import OBJ and drape them with a function called "import OBJ as cloth". You can drape it, move it around. I rarely used that function because it seemed to cause lot's of troubles (exploding clothes again). It's not as easy as it sounds and results depend a lot on the quality of the modeled cloth itself. It's bit unpredictable.  I didn't test it in the newest releases, mabe they fixed some of the issues. But if the cloth is modeled nicely, you can even combine clothes you bought at the DAZ store with cloth you creat in MD itself and drape both to a matching pose. 

Hi, This is a pair of bell bottom jeans I made in ZBrush.  I worked really hard to get the folds right and created a bunch of morphs but then it came to JCM's to get the pants to look right when the legs were bent, off to the side and all that so I thought a good draping program like MD would be very useful for creating those more quickly than making them myself in ZBrush as I'm stickler for detail.  I'd also like to know if there is a way to freeze parts of the cloth so it stays where I want it to stay.  The pants have back pockets, real ones and any other draping program has them either sliding off or they look really droopy so I'd love to be able to freeze the back buttocks area and have them remain stiff or at least is good shape rather than like their dripping off of the pants!  lol  Thank you!

Ok, I did some testing with MDs "OBJ to Garment" imports. MD triangulates geometry of imported OBJs. Perhaps theres a setting in MD that prevents it from doing that but for making morphs it doesnt matter because it doesnt change geometry (vertex) count (or it didnt with items I tried) and DS happily makes morphs from triangulated version of conforming items.

Items, OBJs that are not made from 1 piece of geometry (like separate pockets or buttons) fall apart in simulation. Perhaps there are some settings or import formats that help with that but I didnt look for them. There is pining in MD that pins parts of geometry in place. But pinned parts dont move at all, dont simulate etc. although they can be moved manually. There are also tacks in MD which work sort of like those metal pins people use when they make real cloths. But to use them to tack (pin) say, pocket or button to the rest of the clothing one would probably (I didnt try it) need to import pockets or buttons as separate pieces because, to designate two points, from - to, to tack (pin) you need room between pocket or button and the rest of the clothing so you need to move pockets or buttons away from clothing, either in MD or before importing OBJ in MD.

On the other hand, making morphs using "OBJ to Garment" and MD cloth simulation for conforming items that are in 1 piece works well.

First picture is how items appear when you load them on characters in DS (without base, diffuse textures)

Second picture is items with morphs (shape adjustments) made with MD simulation. What surprised me is that all curved edges and seam lines are still there. I thought that MD simulation is going to straighten them out, but it doesnt.

Third picture is just for the fun of it. :D Mind you, these are all regular DS conforming items. Although they are all 1 piece geometry items. 

 

wolf359

agent unawares said:

They're talking about normal collision for smoothing. -cough-nobodyusesDCC-cough-

agent unawares said:

 

agent unawares said:

 

I am correcting  inaccurate statements about  DAZ DCC 
cloth to cloth collision options.

BTW  "Nobody" is a universal statement which will be disqualified
by the existance of one exception.

I use the DCC with my own custom mesh models.

Also having learned, from this thread, that I would have to implement
an extremely cumbersome multi .obj export sequence to get MarvelousD animated cloth
out of MarvelousD makes MarvelousD a non starter for my animation pipline.

http://www.versluis.com/2015/03/how-to-export-garment-animations-from-marvelous-designer-for-use-in-daz-studio/

Besides I honeslty dont do alot of Dynamic cloth animations.
So spending $490 USD on MD only to have to do more grunt work
of sending animated genesis figures over to MarvelousD.
 
Animating the cloth there , figuring out the scale for multi.obj export to C4D
 and hoping the world space of MD matches the world space for C4D
and cloth lines up with the animated genesis mesh exported from Daz studio
Via the Animate2 MDD exporter.

Well in my case it easier to do my sims in studio
and export directly to C4D as one Single textured animated mesh for rendering.
But as always YMMV.

 

 

 

agent unawares

I am the one who gave you that information you're linking back to me thinking it'll change my mind on something. :\ I'm glad you have a better method than using OBJ export.

There never was a misconception about DCC, that was a true statement about normal collision where DAZ only does support one collision object per item and people including me have been begging for additional item support for a long time.

Finally, saying "nobody uses X" under the breath is just a joke about extremely limited adoption of something, and a bit of pointing out that the two people in the thread you were replying to weren't talking about DCC. I don't know why you're taking it seriously.

RAMWolff

Thanks so much Ben. 

I actually created the pants and then all the additions to the piece like pockets, wallet with chain, belt loops, belt and fly buttons so I can easily open up the ZBrush file and export out just the pants.  So when I get MD I'll have to experiement with stuff.  I don't like that it's going to triangulate my pants though but your saying it won't change the vertex order so my previously made morphs will still work with the pants?  Seems odd to me that it would still work with a completely different type of vertex (from poly to tri's)  Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying there.

agent unawares

The vertexes are still the same between quads and tris. Just tris have additional connections.

RAMWolff

Ah, OK.  But if I were to export it back out as quads, which I think you can do in MD, will the order still be maintained?

agent unawares

I don't know, but I would just export it without messing with geometry, then import it as a morph target to the original.

kyoto kid

agent unawares said:

They're talking about normal collision for smoothing. -cough-nobodyusesDCC-cough-

...I believe the only Optitex item I have is the sheet which was a freebie.  50$ for the full plugin dedicated to a specific line of content seemed sort of a waste for just the one item.

agent unawares

There are a lot of free Optitex clothes if that swings you more in favor of the plugin. http://www.optitex-dynamiccloth.com/FreebieDownload01.php

kyoto kid

....not really, 50$ to use a "closed end" cloth dynamics system that only works with s specific line of content just isn't worth it. I'll stick to saving for MD7 as I also do want to create my own dynamic clothing since "everyday" wear isn't a "hot seller" in the store like fantasy wear and skimpwear are.  Even so called "business attire" and uniforms for females i've seen here and on other 3D sites often would challenge the notion of what real world "professional" attire should look like.

agent unawares

Yeah, it doesn't do it for me either.

Inkubo

By asking this question, it will sound like I'm disparaging MD, but that is not my intention.

A Genesis (1, 3, whatever) figure has wireframe lines that flow regularly and smoothly to form the mesh. The figures and objects I buy from the store here are usually very clean and ordered. I used the MD trial version to model a simple shirt, and the resulting mesh was a stark contrast, with triangles scattered everywhere. It was chaotic and highly disordered.

Does an ordered mesh matter for the purpose of creating clothing for DAZ Studio and potentially submitting for inclusion in the store? I wonder if a highly disordered and triangulated mesh would lead to problems creating bends and morphs. Creating content for sale in the DAZ store isn't MD's primary purpose, of course, but I'm wondering if it's a tool that makes sense to buy for that purpose.

agent unawares

It matters. You can set MD to use quads, which isn't terribly better, or retopologize, which in a decent program isn't bad.

Richard Haseltine

agent unawares said:

It matters. You can set MD to use quads, which isn't terribly better, or retopologize, which in a decent program isn't bad.

I believe that you can also use "internal lines" to hint the topology creation in MD. There are items in the store thata ppear to have the raw MD mesh output - I wanted to do a loop select around a cuff on a dress (a PC item, as I recall, but not sure which) with the Geometry Editor and the line of selected polygons steered a very interesting course.

agent unawares

Yep there are definitely meshes right out of MD in the store. I didn't know the internal lines would have that effect, thanks for pointing it out.

ben98120000

RAMWolff said:

Thanks so much Ben. 

I actually created the pants and then all the additions to the piece like pockets, wallet with chain, belt loops, belt and fly buttons so I can easily open up the ZBrush file and export out just the pants.  So when I get MD I'll have to experiement with stuff.  I don't like that it's going to triangulate my pants though but your saying it won't change the vertex order so my previously made morphs will still work with the pants?  Seems odd to me that it would still work with a completely different type of vertex (from poly to tri's)  Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying there.

I used triangulated OBJs exported from MD to make morphs for items in DS with morph loader pro. I didnt import them into DS.

 

RAMWolff said:

Ah, OK.  But if I were to export it back out as quads, which I think you can do in MD, will the order still be maintained?

You can pick between triangles or quads for the geometry made in MD. I tried using "quadrangulate" on imported OBJs and it didnt do anything.

RAMWolff

Thanks so much folks!  :-)

ben98120000

Inkubo said:

By asking this question, it will sound like I'm disparaging MD, but that is not my intention.

A Genesis (1, 3, whatever) figure has wireframe lines that flow regularly and smoothly to form the mesh. The figures and objects I buy from the store here are usually very clean and ordered. I used the MD trial version to model a simple shirt, and the resulting mesh was a stark contrast, with triangles scattered everywhere. It was chaotic and highly disordered.

Does an ordered mesh matter for the purpose of creating clothing for DAZ Studio and potentially submitting for inclusion in the store? I wonder if a highly disordered and triangulated mesh would lead to problems creating bends and morphs. Creating content for sale in the DAZ store isn't MD's primary purpose, of course, but I'm wondering if it's a tool that makes sense to buy for that purpose.

One can make pretty ordered meshes in MD with internal lines and manipulating geometry count (or particle distance, as it is called in MD).

 Top row, default geometry count, triangles and quads.

Middle row, default geometry count, triangles, quads and internal lines.

Bottom row, reduced geometry count, triangles, quads and internal lines. By reducing geometry count, program doesnt have any freebie geometry to do whatever it wants with it.

 

Taoz

Does "perpetual" license mean that all future updates are free? The price seems pretty low for that IMO.