Best Way to Shadow Folds & Creases in Mesh Clothing

[Chimera Firecaster]

Hello Everyone:

I've been slowly learning how to make mesh clothing in Blender for the last year or so.  I've made some dresses and odds and ends with reasonable success.  I'm really stumped, however, when it comes to folds and creases in mesh clothing.

I can created the folds and creases on the clothing mesh in Blender fine.  Where I'm having my problem is adding shadows the folds and creases in the texture.

Let  me explain a bit more.  I'm currently working on a dress shirt.  I've used proportional edit and the sculpt mode in Blender to create a series of folds and creases in the shirt.

I next create a UV map so I can work in Photoshop to create the texture to go along with the shirt.  While working in Photoshop, however, I can't see where the folds and creases are.  That means I'm unable to add any shadowing effect to the texture to make the folds and creases more realistic.

I've tried baking an Ambient Occlusion map in Blender and then adding it as a layer in Photoshop.  The AO map has some general shading on it, but you really can't see where the folds and creases are.  So the AO map has been no help to me.

I must be going about this all wrong.  I know that there must be a technique that is workable since I've seen mesh clothing with good shadowing matching nicely with the folds and creases in the texture.

I would really love to hear your comments.  What is the best way of going about this?

[Frawmusl]

Set up lights Semi's would work well just make sure its well lit then have a strong light from the angle you want to shadow in and bake with lighting.. Just play with it to get it perfect.. Too tired..to write mo..

[Rahkis Andel]

There is a rundown of several AO baking methods for Blender In one of my threads. My final result captured a lot of detail considering how little was actually in my mesh to begin with.

My guess is that you can't see the detail because either your UV map layout is too confusing or your AO isn't strong enough (If you include a floor with the high-poly mesh you're baking from, you will get more details in your bake).

Adding shadows will just get you inconsistent shading within secondlife. Especially in clothing that will move all the time. AO just adds darkening based on proximity to other faces.

You can try painting in the 3d viewport where you -know- you can see the folds. There is indeed a texture paint mode, though it's archaic even with brush presets (that said, it works if you are willing to work with it). I still think they should be plenty visible with just the AO, however.

Would you mind showing a screenshot of your UVs and the AO bake you say doesn't show the folds?

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

Heya Chimera,

it also depends on how strong the creases are. Plus depends on the all over AO settings.
And if raytrayced or approxim. Also additional objects in the scene can be helping / or as well be hindering, since AO is - as Rahkis also explained getting light/dark-information from the proximity to surrounding faces.

When the folds are very sottle and soft, you will have to play with the AO strength, passes and the AO type.

Sometimes it also helps to make a duplicate of your model and  use it to go a bit 'overboard' with creases and folds, by either scultpting them or editing the mesh itself to have stronger shapes to bake out and then use that for the texture on your original model.

But yeah some screenshots of the skirt's model and the bakes you did so far would be helpfull for figuring what could be wrong in your case : )

[Chimera Firecaster]

Thanks everyone for your replies! 

It sounds like I am approaching this the right way.  At least I'm not hearing any different approaches - other than painting in the 3d viewport. 

I'll try to get some screen shots, but based on what I'm hearing, my problem may be that my mesh is fairly low poly.  I may need to bump up the poly count as Codewarrior most generously suggested and Rahkis described and illustrated quite nicely in his thread.  I'll also add the mesh floor.

Thanks again!

[Rahkis Andel]

It's refreshing to hear when someone is designing so low poly that they start having issues. Less is a better place to start than more!

[Chimera Firecaster]

I just wanted to thank Rahkis and Codewarrior.  Following your instructions, I had much better luck with baking AO's.  I upped the multires to 2 which helped. 

Interesting enough, the mesh floor made a big difference.  (I hadn't been using one.)  In particular, I found Rahkis' idea of using a sphere for the mesh floor to work quite well.  I adapted his idea a bit, starting with a hemisphere with the opening facing up.  I extruded the top of the hemisphere upward and scaled it out a bit, so it looked like the avatar was standing in an open cone with the top of the cone at the armpits.

Here are my AO settings:  16 samples.  "Raytrace."  (I tried Normalize but it made things worse.)

My Bake Settings: AO Bake and "Normalized" checked.  (I tried the "Bake from Multires" setting along with various combinations but I could never get it to work properly.   The bakes were always incomplete.)

Frawmusl - thank you as well, but it appears that extra lighting will not help when it comes to doing an AO bake.  I had experimented with lights earlier and didn't notice any changes.  And then I found this in the Blender help documentation:  "Ambient Occlusion Bake:  Bakes ambient occlusion as specified in the World panels. Ignores all lights in the scene."

 

 

[Chimera Firecaster]

One correction.  For AO Settings, that should be "Approximate" not "Normalize."

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

Glad we could help you to figure things out, and glad you are finding your way around with this project now =)

And yes as you figured by yourself, AO has nothing to do with lights that are in the scene.

Stick to it, and you'll get it the way you like it. IF you run into more problems just ask, there are always people around here willing to help : )