The Marvelous Designer Thread

lilweep

barbult said:

Richard Haseltine said:

lilweep said:

I think it does add a certain element of realism to it, so if you can afford the memory it could be worth it.

But the same thing can be achieved in texturing.  I wonder if there is an easy way to convert and apply the topstitch to texture maps instead.

Should be possible, by exporting the undraped mesh at high (with top-sttich) and low resolution and using one of the tools to bake to normals or to displacement.

Richard, what tools would I need in order to bake to normals?

I know you can do that in Substance Painter when baking the maps, there is an option to convert high res mesh to normal map.

I was just wondering like: what is the process of adding shaders to the clothing if you need to also add a texture (normal map AND diffuse for topstitch colour) for the topstitch.  I guess the topstich would need to be its own material zone to reserve the ability to manipulate the rest of the garment maps independently?  Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around workflows.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Ok, guys, that tears it :) This is a tool that I need to have. Thanks, all of you, for the pointers.

One additional question: I assume that MD is node-locked to the computer it is installed on, and you can't install it on multiple computers. So, I have a desktop that runs Blender on Linux, where I do all my animation and rendering, but it also dual boots Windows. I have a gaming laptop that runs Windows, where I run Motionbuilder and all my other Windows-Only software.

My question is: My desktop is my renderbox and has much more horsepower, but my laptop has a single GTX 2070. But in order to use the desktop, I would have to stop everything it was doing, probably rendering, and boot into Windows to use MD. I would, of course, prefer not to disturb it. Do you guys think the laptop would perform adequately to provide all of that real-time goodness I've seen and am so envious of?

Thanks again.

lilweep

To be honest, it runs pretty crap on my laptop but... it's still useable.  My laptop specs attached. I also have a GTX 1060 mobile GPU on this laptop but I could not get Marvelous Designer to recongise it to take advantage of GPU accelerated simulation.  My experience seems to be getting progressively worse too, though, so i might have a memory leak or i have some of the settings configured incorrectly.  My experience was much smoother on my desktop.

MD and CLO3D make you log in each time, so you should be able to use it across multiple machines. https://support.clo3d.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360029521253-Using-license-on-multiple-machines

I would suggest just trying the free 1 month trial and see how it performs for you.  There's not much of a learning curve to test out the basics.

barbult

The MD website FAQ has a list of system requirements.

Richard Haseltine

lilweep said:

barbult said:

Richard Haseltine said:

lilweep said:

I think it does add a certain element of realism to it, so if you can afford the memory it could be worth it.

But the same thing can be achieved in texturing.  I wonder if there is an easy way to convert and apply the topstitch to texture maps instead.

Should be possible, by exporting the undraped mesh at high (with top-sttich) and low resolution and using one of the tools to bake to normals or to displacement.

Richard, what tools would I need in order to bake to normals?

I know you can do that in Substance Painter when baking the maps, there is an option to convert high res mesh to normal map.

I was just wondering like: what is the process of adding shaders to the clothing if you need to also add a texture (normal map AND diffuse for topstitch colour) for the topstitch.  I guess the topstich would need to be its own material zone to reserve the ability to manipulate the rest of the garment maps independently?  Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around workflows.

Substance was my thought, and modo, but I think there is a free (or very cheap) application purely for baking from high-res mesh to low - I just can't recall its name.

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Ok, guys, that tears it :) This is a tool that I need to have. Thanks, all of you, for the pointers.

One additional question: I assume that MD is node-locked to the computer it is installed on, and you can't install it on multiple computers. So, I have a desktop that runs Blender on Linux, where I do all my animation and rendering, but it also dual boots Windows. I have a gaming laptop that runs Windows, where I run Motionbuilder and all my other Windows-Only software.

My question is: My desktop is my renderbox and has much more horsepower, but my laptop has a single GTX 2070. But in order to use the desktop, I would have to stop everything it was doing, probably rendering, and boot into Windows to use MD. I would, of course, prefer not to disturb it. Do you guys think the laptop would perform adequately to provide all of that real-time goodness I've seen and am so envious of?

Thanks again.

The Steam version isn't node-locked (but Steam does have to be connected to use it, and it's not upgradeable).

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Thanks again, guys.

DarkEdgeDesign

Richard Haseltine said:

Substance was my thought, and modo, but I think there is a free (or very cheap) application purely for baking from high-res mesh to low - I just can't recall its name.

I think you might be referring to xNormal...but it is old and clunky. Substance is a industry standard...quicky and easy!

galien

Perpetual licenses are 30% off until the end of the year.  Not as good as last years offer, but still pretty good.

 

marble

galien said:

Perpetual licenses are 30% off until the end of the year.  Not as good as last years offer, but still pretty good.

 

I'm tempted but, as you say, last year it was 50% which is why I grabbed it. The upgrade price is also 30% discount so that is what is tempting me.

lilweep

I thought usually its 75% discount if you upgrade from the previous version (MD version 8) and 60% discount when upgrading from Version 6 or 7. 

i would think - and obviously this is a subjective opinion - even with the discount, the upgrades are not really worth it if you already have a recent version of MD.

PhilW

lilweep said:

I thought usually its 75% discount if you upgrade from the previous version (MD version 8) and 60% discount when upgrading from Version 6 or 7. 

i would think - and obviously this is a subjective opinion - even with the discount, the upgrades are not really worth it if you already have a recent version of MD.

That corresponds with the upgrade price I am seeing.

Nath

marble said:

galien said:

Perpetual licenses are 30% off until the end of the year.  Not as good as last years offer, but still pretty good.

 

I'm tempted but, as you say, last year it was 50% which is why I grabbed it. The upgrade price is also 30% discount so that is what is tempting me.

If this is valid until the end of the year, why not wait a bit and see if they do something special for Cyber Monday?

marble

lilweep said:

I thought usually its 75% discount if you upgrade from the previous version (MD version 8) and 60% discount when upgrading from Version 6 or 7. 

i would think - and obviously this is a subjective opinion - even with the discount, the upgrades are not really worth it if you already have a recent version of MD.

Yeah, that is confusing. The full price has a discount but when I login, the upgrade price is the same as before the sale (i.e. 75% discount), even though there is a note beneath the prices saying:

"NOTE

For those people with old versions are now eligible for the upgrade to the latest version at discounted price"

 

barbult

I agree, the lack of a 50% off promotion this year is disappointing.

[email protected]

Hi All,

How do I apply textures to an imported (from Marvelous Designer) OBJ? DAZ does not seem to recognize the textures exported by Marvelous Designer. I'm not familiar with UV maps. Not sure if it's due to UV of the imported OBJ being messed up but any texture that I attempt to apply to the imported OBJ appears stretched and not evenly proportioned.

lilweep

It's hard to diagnose the problems accurately without a screenshot?

1. Make sure your textures is in a single 'UV tile' in the UV editor (e.g., make sure it is within the first quadrant of the grid).  See the video below.

Or if your UV editor looks more like this one below, then the same rationale applies.  Everything should fit in the first UV tile indicated by the grids.

Note: When exporting textures from Marvelous Designer, I believe you will only be able to export the Base Colour.  Meaning, I don't think you can get MD to export any applied normal maps.

2. Make sure you are applying your textures to the correct material zone in the surfaces tool in Daz Studio.

[email protected]

lilweep said:

It's hard to diagnose the problems accurately without a screenshot?

1. Make sure your textures is in a single 'UV tile' in the UV editor (e.g., make sure it is within the first quadrant of the grid).  See the video below.

Or if your UV editor looks more like this one below, then the same rationale applies.  Everything should fit in the first UV tile indicated by the grids.

Note: When exporting textures from Marvelous Designer, I believe you will only be able to export the Base Colour.  Meaning, I don't think you can get MD to export any applied normal maps.

2. Make sure you are applying your textures to the correct material zone in the surfaces tool in Daz Studio.

thanks, lilweep!

barbult

It took me two days, several YouTube videos, and a lot of frustration to tie the knot on this robe I made a few days ago. Everything that is stretchy and forgiving about MD fabric collisions works against making a tight knot stay in place. Finally, I used a couple tacks to keep it from slipping apart. At first I tried a wider belt, but I couldn't get the fabric pieces to stop breaking through each other. It seemed to work better with the thinner belt. 

I made a tied version and an untied version. Draping was done in MD with an MDD exported from Daz Studio. Shaders were applied in Daz Studio for the texture.

PhilW

@barbult - this looks amazing!

barbult

Thank you, Phil. I wish it were easier to make it into Daz Studio conforming or dForce clothing. I've listened to the new tutorial about JCMs and such, but it sounds like a lengthy process.

PhilW

I'm not a clothing expert but I would think with dForce clothing, you need less in the way of JCMs as the draping takes care of a lot of that.

DarkEdgeDesign

barbult said:

Thank you, Phil. I wish it were easier to make it into Daz Studio conforming or dForce clothing. I've listened to the new tutorial about JCMs and such, but it sounds like a lengthy process.

JCM's aren't for the weak at heart. My tuts are mainly for PA's or heavy Studio users but I also try and make them suitable for hobbist's as well.

xmasrose

@barbult Looks great!

Would mind sharing the links to the tuts that were the most helpful to learn how to tie the knot? Thank you.

barbult

xmasrose (aka tulipe) said:

@barbult Looks great!

Would mind sharing the links to the tuts that were the most helpful to learn how to tie the knot? Thank you.

These are what I bookmarked.

Marvelous Designer knot making (This is the one I used the most.)

Tying a Sash Bow in CLO (not MD, but CLO, but similar enough to be a little helpful. My MD fabric won't slide along like they show, though. It cuts through.)

Fashion Design: Wrapping Muffler (Very old, but has some helpful text overlays on the video)

 

xmasrose

Thank you very much, will watch them.

Kharma

If you signup for the MD course at CGElves , they have a coupon right now for 200.00 off, so you get the course for 99.00 USD

lilweep

barbult said:

 

Tying a Sash Bow in CLO (not MD, but CLO, but similar enough to be a little helpful. My MD fabric won't slide along like they show, though. It cuts through.)

That video looked a lot more elegant than some of the other tutorials. 

To get the fabrics to 'slide' over eachother like that, you need to increase the collision distance to like 5 instead of 2.5.

 

barbult

lilweep said:

barbult said:

 

Tying a Sash Bow in CLO (not MD, but CLO, but similar enough to be a little helpful. My MD fabric won't slide along like they show, though. It cuts through.)

That video looked a lot more elegant than some of the other tutorials. 

To get the fabrics to 'slide' over eachother like that, you need to increase the collision distance to like 5 instead of 2.5.

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll try that.

barbult

Here is a suit I've been working on for the last couple days. The learning challenge here was buttons. I used the "set number of layers" technique explained in the second half of this video. This was simulated in MD with an MDD exported from Daz Studio. As usual, the textures are shaders applied in Daz Studio.

EightiesIsEnough

I do have one question.  I discovered there is a Marvelous Designer archive filled with past versions of the software.  What I'd like to ask is, are these archived downloads free to use permanently?