Just about to start using Marvelous Designer

[ChloeVida]

Hello :) I am about to start using Marvelous Designer to create clothes for SL.I have found some youtube tutorials on how to create mesh clothes,but I don't know how to find a full tutorial/guide from A to Z (create the clothes->extract/make UV maps->export->upload to SL in the standard sizes).

Can anybody please,be kind and share this kind of a tutorial with me,if you have/know one? ♥

[Sassy Romano]

Other than making the initial draped object, everything else that you asked about is accomplished in your choice of 3D modelling software.  MD just drapes cloth.

The only exception here is that the pattern layout from MD can be used as the UV layout or you could completely re-do it in other software.  Thus the answers to your steps would depend on which software you choose to use after making the initial draped cloth model.

Blender is popular and there are plug ins to help creation for SL.

[Chic Aeon]

I have never used Marvelous Designer but I have seen many posts here from folks who have and ended up with garments that were way too dense a mesh to be useful in SL. So beware that if you have too many triangles in your garments it will either NOT upload or your customers will go around naked for a long time while the item is trying to rez.

 

You might look into making things "by hand"?   A thought. Most everyone that does clothes uses Avastar so you might want to look that up. There are tutorials there.

 

Good luck! 

[ChloeVida]

Hmm making them by hand is an option too! Hopefully I will find some Blender tutorials on that  

[Cathy Foil]

Marvelous Designer is an absolutely wonderful tool for making clothes for SL.

I use Marvelous Designer to do the initial design of the clothes usually because it is so much faster and you can get natural draping and folding of the cloth quickly and easily.  It also makes nice UVs which are the same as your 2D patterns you created when designing the mesh.

I never use Marvelous Designers quads.  They have horrible edge flow.  I always retopo my mesh in Maya into quads.  This has so many advantages.  You end up with good edge flow which not only makes the mesh look better it help it to bend more naturally when the avatar moves and it makes it easier to rig.  Not only that by retopoing your mesh you can cut down on the number of vertices needed for the mesh which makes it less laggy and cheaper to upload.  Yes it may take you 45 minutes to several hours to retopo, depending on how complex your mesh is, but it is worth it.

I have a couple of videos I made a while ago on how to retopo MD mesh into quads using Maya:

In the second video I show how to reproduce the UVs that were created by Marvelous Designer for your new quad mesh.
When I am done retopoing I rig with MayaStar which is for Maya.  If you are using Blender Avastar is a must.

I hope that helps.
Cathy

[ChloeVida]

Ooooh,these look good! Many thanks! So,I would need Blender,Maya and MD together? Isn't there any way to make low-poly clothes into MD ? I mean,an easier way

[Sassy Romano]

You can set the segment size to be quite large which will significantly reduce the number of triangles from the default but MD doesn't have ANY ability to weight the clothing so it will just turn out a static object file.

That's where another tool comes in, you weight and export as DAE and import to SL.

[Cathy Foil]

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ChloeVida wrote:

Ooooh,these look good! Many thanks! So,I would need Blender,Maya and MD together? Isn't there any way to make low-poly clothes into MD

? I mean,an easier way

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You don't need Blender, Maya and MD.  You just either need Maya and MD or Blender and MD.  You need Maya or Blender to rig your MD mesh.  You could just use the quad conversion in MD and not rebuild your mesh into quads using Maya or Blender.  I have already given my reasons why I don't like MD's quads.

If you absolutely don't want to rebuild your mesh into quads manually to decrease lag and make your MD clothes more efficient increase the "Particle Distance" in MD.  As you increase the Particle Distance you will loose detail so increase it as much as possible without loosing too much detail you want your mesh clothes to have.  Then use MD's quad conversion.

Since MD quads do not have good edge flow the mesh will be harder to rig and not move as well as mesh you rebuild into quads manually in Maya or Blender.  I highly recommend you rebuild your mesh into quads manually and not rely on MD to generate the quads.

Hope that helps.

Cathy