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Marvelous Designer workflows/tips?

polycounter lvl 8
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Stirls polycounter lvl 8
How many of you use MD on a regular basis? Anyone have a workflow/tips to share?

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  • Suba
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    Suba polycounter lvl 5
    I never used it so I'm really interrested in this thread.

    If you don't mind I would also like to add some questions.
    Is it a must skill to have to work in studios? Which studios actually use it? Is it a standard workflow software now?
  • luthyn
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    luthyn polycounter lvl 8
    Marvelous is definitely becoming more popular throughout studios, and is becoming more of a go to solution for cloth simulation. If you are a character artist, it would be silly to not at least look into it and give it a go. I personally love the software and have found it immensely helpful in dealing with any type of cloth for both character and environment work.

    The learning curve isn't too bad, and there are enough tutorials out there to get you started. I can direct you to some of the ones that helped me if you like. What is key is understanding how actual clothing patterns work. Yes, you can just draw quick shapes and get them onto your character, but the more accurate you draw your patterns, the better your results will be.

    As for workflow, what specifically are you looking into making? A simple shirt is always a good place to start, even if you are an environment artist. Download some of the free patterns here http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/market/?category=7 and look at how they drew the patterns and how similar the measurements are between elements (length of the lines that will be stitched together should be the same or damn close).

    Also the MD forums themselves are a very useful resource. There are some answers you will get there that other forums like Polycount don't seem to have, and users such as Rosemaryr are really pushing the program to its limits: http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/member/activity/?userid=Rosemaryr .

    The biggest downside is that currently MD does not export quads, so you have to go through a few hoops to get the mesh workable once out of MD itself. But between ZBrush and Maya there are plenty of ways to do this.

    As for studios, officially Konami, EA, Capcom, Naughty Dog, Ubisoft, Microsoft. This page: http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/cases/clients.aspx

    Um..but yea. Ha, what are you looking into making? :D
  • kurt_hectic
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    kurt_hectic polycounter lvl 10
    It's very useful piece of software. You all really should try it out.

    There is plenty of tiny thing...but mainly, for now I can only only recomment to pay attestation to the SCALE. Make test bakes end export them to the engine. In my case I had to rescale my model 3x to get good results (wrinkles size).
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    Some of the stuff I saw from that Naughty Dog character artist who created characters from The Last of Us used it, I'm pretty sure. Wouldn't surprise me if he/her just sculpted it all by hand, though..

    luthyn, a big, thick WWII jacket. Something I know MD can't execute very well (straight-up, that is). Thanks for the links, too.

    I'm in the camp that would love to learn how to sculpt cloth, but doesn't really have the time to do so. Totally want to get into that, however!

    Good responses, guys.
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Stirls wrote: »
    Some of the stuff I saw from that Naughty Dog character artist who created characters from The Last of Us used it, I'm pretty sure. Wouldn't surprise me if he/her just sculpted it all by hand, though..

    If you're talking about Mike Knowland I'm pretty sure he sculpted all of his cloth work. Another one to check out is Mashru Mishu :)
  • SuperFranky
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    SuperFranky polycounter lvl 10
    If you can sew or know someone who can, it's worth it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. It's not something you can just hack your way into.
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    If you can sew or know someone who can, it's worth it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. It's not something you can just hack your way into.

    I have a cousin in the fashion industry.. but I doubt they'd like me to bother them everytime I want a jacket layout. I think I might just try using the folds in MD as reference for sculpting.

    Torch, I'll definitely check him out!
  • LRoy
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    LRoy polycounter lvl 10
    If you can sew or know someone who can, it's worth it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. It's not something you can just hack your way into.

    Yes it is.
  • Dylan Brady
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    Dylan Brady polycounter lvl 9
    yeah, one good way to 'hack' your way into it is to just import an obj as cloth.
    so with that technique you don't need to deal with any of the pattern making. if you just want a shirt you modeled to have some kool simulated folds its perfect. you can fuck around with the pins to get stuff to bunch up/hang from spots.
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    yeah, one good way to 'hack' your way into it is to just import an obj as cloth.
    so with that technique you don't need to deal with any of the pattern making. if you just want a shirt you modeled to have some kool simulated folds its perfect. you can fuck around with the pins to get stuff to bunch up/hang from spots.

    Wait... WHAT?!

    You can import .obj files to be simulated like cloth? Damn it!
  • JohnnyRaptor
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    JohnnyRaptor polycounter lvl 15
    yeah but its super limited at the moment, where it literally only runs a physics sim on it. no other options really.
  • luthyn
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    luthyn polycounter lvl 8
    Yea, if you want to learn about sculpting, I think that messing around in MD a bit to study what the fabric is doing is worth the time. Then you can just export that out quickly and take it into ZBrush to mess with.

    One quick side perk, you can use any patterns you draw as the UVs of your mesh. So, that might come in handy via transfer attributes or something. :)
  • SuperFranky
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    SuperFranky polycounter lvl 10
    LRoy wrote: »
    Yes it is.

    You can do t-shirts, easy stuff like pants or something fairly easy. But fitting and pattern making is a whole new level of complication. Try making a good looking and fitting trench coat or something and you'll see how fast it can get out of control if you know nothing about this stuff. But what if you want something that isn't realistic? First and foremost it's a sewing tool and very realistic at that.

    But I hope you can prove me wrong. I have spent a fair amount of time researching this stuff before giving up on it.
  • stry
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    stry polycounter lvl 11
    SuperFranky, Liberal use of google and hunting down sewing patterns is a great way to "hack your way into it." Why would anyone just start winging it without google and prior sewing knowledge in this day and age?

    I don't know what you mean with unrealistic clothes. The materials would be alien? Or making something for a humanoid with six arms? Making heightened and stylized things is tricky, but why would you then use software like this?
  • Swizzle
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    Swizzle polycounter lvl 15
    If you can sew or know someone who can, it's worth it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. It's not something you can just hack your way into.

    I'm going to have to completely disagree with this. While it's pretty difficult to just jump into with no prior knowledge, you can get excellent results in no time if you are willing to do some legwork and invest in learning how clothes are really put together.

    Here's something I made with absolutely zero experience with sewing or pattern making:
    jpzYP6X.jpg

    I used that jacket as a test to determine if using MD was worth the time and money, and I've decided it absolutely is. It involves learning an entirely new set of skills, but it's going to save me so much time in the long run that the initial time investment is essentially nothing.
  • fatihG_
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    fatihG_ polycounter lvl 14
    Yeah I agree. After watching some of the vids they published on how to work with Marvelous Designer, it was pretty easy to start making some clothes.

    Honestly the way I see it, it is basically creating UV shells and the app takes care of "modelling".
    They way I set up the UV for any character/clothes is basically putting seams on the seams of clothes anyway, so I don't think it would be too difficult to set things up even if you dont have any "sewing" experience.
    If you have a decent bit of experience with UV
  • Suba
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    Suba polycounter lvl 5
    luthyn wrote: »
    Marvelous is definitely becoming more popular throughout studios, and is becoming more of a go to solution for cloth simulation. If you are a character artist, it would be silly to not at least look into it and give it a go. I personally love the software and have found it immensely helpful in dealing with any type of cloth for both character and environment work.

    The learning curve isn't too bad, and there are enough tutorials out there to get you started. I can direct you to some of the ones that helped me if you like. What is key is understanding how actual clothing patterns work. Yes, you can just draw quick shapes and get them onto your character, but the more accurate you draw your patterns, the better your results will be.

    As for workflow, what specifically are you looking into making? A simple shirt is always a good place to start, even if you are an environment artist. Download some of the free patterns here http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/market/?category=7 and look at how they drew the patterns and how similar the measurements are between elements (length of the lines that will be stitched together should be the same or damn close).

    Also the MD forums themselves are a very useful resource. There are some answers you will get there that other forums like Polycount don't seem to have, and users such as Rosemaryr are really pushing the program to its limits: http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/member/activity/?userid=Rosemaryr .

    The biggest downside is that currently MD does not export quads, so you have to go through a few hoops to get the mesh workable once out of MD itself. But between ZBrush and Maya there are plenty of ways to do this.

    As for studios, officially Konami, EA, Capcom, Naughty Dog, Ubisoft, Microsoft. This page: http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/cases/clients.aspx

    Um..but yea. Ha, what are you looking into making? :D
    Damn, thank you for all the info. I'll looking into it too then.
    I guess it is more useful to learn how to make folds like Michael Knowland, but after watching some tutorials, it would not take that long to know how to use MD, and all the big studios are using it apparently. I had no idea it was that used, I always thought it was that weird experimental software that only Hideo Kojima wanted to use. Haha.
    yeah, one good way to 'hack' your way into it is to just import an obj as cloth.
    so with that technique you don't need to deal with any of the pattern making. if you just want a shirt you modeled to have some kool simulated folds its perfect. you can fuck around with the pins to get stuff to bunch up/hang from spots.
    Fuck, this is a god tier secret tip ! Thank you.
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    Swizzle wrote: »
    I'm going to have to completely disagree with this. While it's pretty difficult to just jump into with no prior knowledge, you can get excellent results in no time if you are willing to do some legwork and invest in learning how clothes are really put together.

    Here's something I made with absolutely zero experience with sewing or pattern making:
    jpzYP6X.jpg

    I used that jacket as a test to determine if using MD was worth the time and money, and I've decided it absolutely is. It involves learning an entirely new set of skills, but it's going to save me so much time in the long run that the initial time investment is essentially nothing.

    Great replies here, guys. Really informative. Swizzle, that is a marvellous turnout! I don't suppose you'd mind sharing the pattern made to create that, or the values you used to make it less "bouncy"? Even if I have the perfect pattern laid out, it'll always return to a bouncy, almost frock-like look around a majority of the model.
  • stry
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    stry polycounter lvl 11
    Stirls, Have you tried changing the Fabric properties, like stiffness, thickness, and stretching?
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    Indeed I have. However, I'll fool around with it a bit more. It's just a bit of a time sink when you spend a while setting up the layout, and it doesn't work/look nice. Found some decent sewing patterns to work with now!
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Tbh the results can be awesome but I'm kinda with Dustin on this, I just hate the simulation part of it and would much rather sculpt the folds out of preference. Also depends on the results you want, type of fabric, etc.

    I would like to one day get to a point where I could sculpt cloth with good results at a similar speed it would take to create a piece in MD :)
  • Swizzle
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    Swizzle polycounter lvl 15
    Stirls wrote: »
    Great replies here, guys. Really informative. Swizzle, that is a marvellous turnout! I don't suppose you'd mind sharing the pattern made to create that, or the values you used to make it less "bouncy"? Even if I have the perfect pattern laid out, it'll always return to a bouncy, almost frock-like look around a majority of the model.
    I didn't realize at first that you could have single lines instead of closed shapes for Internal Shapes, so there's some janky stuff going on here, but here's what the pattern looks like:
    501dTnV.jpg

    As far as settings go, I haven't used anything weird or new. The fabric on this uses the R_Windbreaker_CLO_v1 setting with no customization.

    I did end up using two pieces for each sleeve to give it some more volume, though. This involved copying the existing pieces to make an internal lining, mirroring and flipping them around so I could stitch them, then stitching them to the external pieces so it was a dual layered piece. I then stitched the sleeves to the shoulder seam, simulated so they would drape over the arm, and then stitched them to close the sleeve tube. I did similar with the collar, the zipper cover, and the seam at the bottom of the jacket.
    Torch wrote: »
    I would like to one day get to a point where I could sculpt cloth with good results at a similar speed it would take to create a piece in MD :)
    Honestly, I'm exactly the same way. I absolutely love sculpting fabric and I find it extremely rewarding, but I simply can't beat MD. I'd love to be able to get the kind of quality that it can achieve simply by sculpting stuff in Zbrush, but even then I'd never be able to achieve the same kind of results in anywhere near the same timeframe.
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks for that, Swizzle. Really nice looking jacket layout there. Mine looks quite muddled and complex..

    3f9416c2d1.png
  • FourtyNights
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    FourtyNights polycounter
    I found that creating clothes for own custom characters (avatars) is a bit harder without arrangement points. For example, when trying to make a sleeve which has a seam under the arm. The simulated result is that sleeves are not wrapped around the arm. Instead, they're just hanging on the side of the character.

    Is there a manual way to shape pieces of garments in the 3D view? Currently I'll just create the clothing for the default characters that MD comes with and I save the clothing as garments to load for my own character with those cylidrical/curved shapes of garments. That's the only way I've found out by trial and error.

    In general, I would also like to see more worklows by using MD for game characters.
  • Der Hollander
    You can add custom arrangement points for base models that you've imported into Marvelous D, which makes some fiddly areas a lot easier to manage.
    Also, if you're not satisfied with the way a piece of cloth is hanging on your character, you can grab points in the simulation viewport and drag them around. It's not a perfect solution, not nearly as much as creating your own arrangement points, but it might help.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    one big piece of advice i can give about MD:

    visit some thrift shops, buy some cheap ass clothes, and de-stitch them. i don't mean cut them open at the seams, i mean go in with one of these little fuckers and remove the stitches by hand:
    $(KGrHqR,!qYFJSuCW1pgBSZ1SrzKhw~~60_35.JPG

    then you'll be able to photograph or scan in the cloth cut to the right size, know where the stitching should go and so on. you can build a pretty good library of clothing for cheap like this.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    You can also find sewing patterns to use as guides. They sell them in stores, and online. And although I haven't looked, I'm sure there's a lot of free ones.
  • Treece
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    Treece polycounter lvl 3
    Recommend Pinterest for patterns. Try "Pattern Cutting/Cutter" (The real world trade). There's a handful of good books out there also for those who want to delve deeper into this arena. You'll be making your own patterns in no time once you learn the fundamentals.

    I will see what books my missus has got and post the titles on here (She's just done a load of courses on pattern cutting).
  • martinszeme
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    martinszeme polycounter lvl 8
    I've done some work in MD. I started with v2 and my god it was an experience. The thing didn't have undo, so if you do something you didn't want to or the sim spazes out - you're in trouble. Anyhow, they added undo later as a major (!!!) feature and it is a bit better now over all.
    Generally you can learn it in couple hours, just watch some youtube tutorials to get the basics and then work on something simple.
    Haven't done characters yet, but did beds like these: https://umolab.com/AssetDetail/3D-Model/3231/Double-Bed,-Duvet,-throw-&-Cushions-John-Lewis
    Its nice to see how it properly does cloth to cloth sim and is fairly free to adjust. But it is very much a love-hate relationship with the software. Also agree with the tips about getting patterns, desewing existing pieces. It can be hard to "read" the patterns you can buy online as they often don't indicate where each pieces goes and their names so getting a physical piece might be easier.
    So start simple, something like a cushion to learn about pins, sews and then move onto proper clothing.
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    I've learned quite a lot since I started using MD. Glad to see this thread is still going.
  • luthyn
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    luthyn polycounter lvl 8
    Just to remind everyone that this is used: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70jVUBnp6lQ[/ame]
  • N_San
    No doubt MD is a great soft, most of studios nowadays uses MD, its becoming the part of pipeline, for major studios likes ND(Uncharted 4) , Konami (Metal gear soild 5) and many more.
  • cptSwing
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    cptSwing polycounter lvl 11
    Just stumbled over these, might be helpful for Env Artists:

    Bedding set in Marvelous Designer
    http://viscorbel.com/bedding-tutorial-marvelous-designer/

    Marvelous Designer tutorial – Round Cushion
    http://viscorbel.com/marvelous-designer-tutorial-round-cushion/
  • kay-vonlanthen
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    kay-vonlanthen polycounter lvl 7
    yeah, one good way to 'hack' your way into it is to just import an obj as cloth.
    how and where can i read this? MD is so f-ed up arranging things. who designed this crap. im loosing it over here. cant even do simple things because its so hard to arrange these patterns and pin them. how can i import an obj mesh as cloth? would love to know that. google knows squad.
  • Camilli
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    Camilli polycounter lvl 2
    MD is really great! Once one understands how to create patterns for clothes it's easy and fast to create realistic clothes.
    It can be frustrating if you don't understand how ot use the software or the basics of how ot design clothes.

    I've made a free Marvelous Designer dress workshop showing how to create the dress patterns, basic texturing, and how to simulate the garment. You can watch the dress tutorials here: https://cgelves.com/free-marvelous-designer-renaissance-dress-video-tutorial-workshop/

    Here are some workflow tips on exporting from Marvelous Designer:
    Marvelous Designer to ZBrush (before the MD7 bridge).
    Marvelous Designer to Substance Painter.
    Converting Marvelous Designer 7 clothes to dynamic Sansar clothes for sale.


    I've also created some more free Marvelous Designer tutorials here, as well as courses and workshops.


    What you'll learn in the free Marvelous Designer dress workshop:


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