Was talking to a fellow artist tonight and he suggested making cloth folds in max versus zbrush as per getting the angles of gravity. Was wondering which do you all prefer? I know many like using zbrush as the final step, but for those that do a bit more work in zbrush, can a cloth feeling be acheived easily enough?

Well just consider that it will take a good deal of practie to get decent cloth folds in zbrush and a lot of thought put into how it actually works. Whereas im asuming you're using some cloth sim in max? If not you're talking about straight modeling cloth which if you're fast enough at it can be good tho i would still recomend a zbrush pass for smaller wrinkles and just doing the large stuff in max. This really applies to any program, not just max.

No cloth sim. I thought it would be more organic in zbrush as I could sketch with the push/pull tool versus max which would take more technical forethought... at least I assumed so at first. But your saying the opposite. Something Im missing?

Making cloth in clay is easy for me which I thought would translate to zbrush? Guess not?

clothsim is totally nasty. urgh, that's as far from an artistic approach as you can get if you have more than a simple loincloth to simulate. a real nightmare.

there's nothing hard about painting folds in zbrush. it's quick and straightforward and you don't have to worry about topology which would be a major pain in the behind when modelling folds in max. so as long as you can sculpt or draw, this would by far be the quickest route that let you concentrate on the craft.

Yeah, I was gonna say, planning topology for folds in max would probably take a lot more effort than just subdividing a few times in zbrush and just painting away.

i'm with mop and thomasp here. i did up a high rez pair of pants a while back and quite frankly, just the amount of times i re-did it because i didn't like the flow of the fabric made me thankful i didn't go in and properly set-up the topology. anyway i'm starting to think that it might be swanky to do everything in zbrush from the ground up, but i haven't really gone too in depth with that so don't listen to my ass :O

I think it's a matter of learning how to do good folds, regardless of software..once you know how, it should be quick in either app. But, I admit, I'm full of bullshit.. we are hacks after all, and generally get good results by redoing until it looks good, so I suggest zbrush. I'm not being sarcastic or anything btw (so please don't yell at me, lol)

I find painting wrinkles and folds in Zbrush super easy. I don't bother trying to guess what the folds would actually do in real-life, I just use photo ref and paint to match.

If you do go the Zbrush route, try the deco brush in projection master, it's the bees knees.

would it be better to use photoshop,when you texture paint it,or is zbrush alot easier on folds and wrinkles,just wondering,Thanks,Chris^_^

also...if you use zbrush, i highly recommend using masks and then pulling the geo over the masked part for creases and such.

Ah! Smart tip, fritz, thanks [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

To further fritz's advice, paint the mask on a low level, then up it for a super smooth gradient. It interpolates the verts from the lower levels. I'll paint mine at level 2 or 3, and then at level 4 or 5, it's a nice smooth gradient.

I am starting to think that building the gemoetry for folds in max is more controllable. Might take a little longer, but seems less hassle in the long run.

BTW another technique in zbrush to to inflate the detail around a mask from a texture map. works quite well

You could try cutting up photos with cloth folds to get the bits you want.

Then go into projection master (create new texture)
Set it to colour only
Set tool "plane 3D"
Alpha - one of the circles with a falloff
Stroke - rectangular stroke
Texture - load in one of the cut up photos showing folds
Put zintensity down to 0 and the colour intensity to around 60%
Then drag and drop the creases where you want on the model. When you are done, pick it back up from projection master. Go to tools>maskin>int (create mask from texture intensity).

You can turn the texture off now to make it easier to see. You can either go in with the tools and inflate etc., or go to tools>deformation>inflate (about 5) then smooth (about 10). Do that a few times.
This is mixing two techniques shown in videos in the 'artists in action' area on www.pixologic.com .