Blender Cloth Brush
marble
Posts: 7,500
Has anyone tried the Cloth Brush in the Blender Sculpt Tools? I'm wondering whether it is possible to use it to make morphs for clothing I use in DAZ Studio - either conforming or dForce. I have only watched a video on the cloth brush itself but I am not clear whether the imported mesh would need to be converted to Blender cloth (if that's even a thing) or whther the vertex count would be screwed up if sculpted that way. I normally use only the grab brush and a couple of others when making morphs because I don't want to risk the vertex count. From the video I watched, it looks like the mesh needs to be high density so perhaps not suitable for DAZ clothing?
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I haven't tried it on a Daz asset yet, but I know for certain that you can use the Cloth brush in sculpt mode to create Key Shapes of a mesh inside Blender. This means that using the cloth brush will work as a morph. Shape Keys in Blender are the native equivalent to morphs in DS. Obviously, for the cloth brush to work properly, you need a mesh with a sufficient number of vertices to begin with but yes that should work fine.
Thanks - I hope to get around to trying this later but are you saying that the vertex count is not affected? I was also wondering whether a workaround for any lack of mesh density might be to use the Multires modifier. I think I saw a video a while back which mentioned that it is non-destructive which I took to mean that the vertex count is maintained. I can't find the video now though.
You can not use any brush or modifier that changes the resolution of the mesh. This will change the vertex order and ultimately make it useless for morphs. The cloth brush in Blender does not change vertex order as long as you do not use remeshing or dynatopo with it. The cloth brush will simply add cloth dynamics to an existing mesh, but it doesn't change the resolution. You can not use the multi res modifier. That will change resolution, and thus change the vertex order. When they say it is non-destructive, they mean it isn't changing the geometry in a way that is permanent from within Blender itself. However, once you apply the modifier to export the mesh, it will change the vertex order and resolution. All modifiers are "non-destructive" to the Blender workflow until you apply them permanently to the geometry.
OK - I did try it and it does work. However, it is very difficult to control the cloth rucking extent or direction. One thing that would be a great help would be some kind of collision detection otherwise the cloth just disappears into the Genesis figure and it is very difficult to get it to rest on the figure. A combination of cloth brush and cloth sim with the Genesis figure as the collision object would be ideal.
[EDIT] - It seems that collision detection is possible after all ...
Cloth Sculpting improvements in Blender 2.91 — Blender Developers Blog
[EDIT #2] - Unfortunately, Blender 2.91 crashes if I attempt to use the cloth brush with collision enabled. :(
The default drag deformation cloth brush kind of sucks when it comes to controlling the results. You are right. Personally, I tend to use the Grab deformation brush when starting out. I would recommend changing the deformation type to Grab or Push when deforming the cloth.
Used it and it does take some experimentation. Make sure there is enough mesh density, it seems that it prefers more.
Have you tried it with collision enabled? I have attempted it a few times and Blender 2.91 seems to be doing some strange things. Either it crashes to desktop when collision is enabled and I try to use the cloth brush or it goes into ultra-slow mode and it is pointless trying to continue. The clothing I had exported from DAZ Studio was not particularly polygon heavy so I am inclined to think that they have a lot more work to do on these features yet.
You really shouldn't need collision if you're using it for a sculpt. The collision is intended for animation features that will be added to the sculpting tools later on. There's going to be animated sculpting in Blender that will allow you to create an animation from your sculpting process that will be like keyframing shape keys from sculpting results over time. They call it keymesh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPvLQH17Y2Q
But if you're using it for a morph result, you don't need collision enabled. Why would you? It's not really a simulation that is reacting to motion like a clothing simulation would. If any parts intersect, you just use the sculpt tools to smooth them over or pull them out. Change the brush type with the cloth brush and you'll get the results you need without collision.
Yeah, my problem was trying to get the cloth to form around a thigh, for example. I was trying to use the cloth brush to make a morph for an already posed dress so the dForce sim had already done its thing and the morph was to pull it to where I wanted it. As I tried with the cloth brush it just uncontrollably disappeared under the surface of the G8F figure. Pulling it out resulted in some parts being some distance away from the leg while others still buried under the surface. I will try different cloth brush options but collision detection with the figure would make it so much easier.
I have Marvelous Designer 8 so I may try to figure out how to get the figure and dress into that and see if I can use the ability to tug the cloth while it is draping. I must say that I have not had much luck with non-MD cloth in MD, however.
I would highly recommend looking into that Simply Cloth Pro plugin I mentioned. It has features specific to the creation and draping of cloth on models, with collision, and all sorts of sewing features and stuff similar to MD. If you already have MD, then by all means go for it there. The cloth brush in the sculpting room is not intended to be used to drape a cloth over another model. It's used for sculpting in cloth-like details with simulated looking effects, but not really for draping. It's for sculpting in wrinkles and natural folds into already existing geometry.
If you want to create clothing, you need to drape that clothing in a real simulation first. The cloth brush is only useful as a secondary means of creating cloth FX on a mesh.
Well, that's exactly what I did want to do - "cloth-like details ... wrinkles ... natural folds into already existing geometry". I don't want to create clothing. I want to morph the dress I already have. I assumed that collision would assist in avoiding intersecting. I don't even want to drape it - it is already draped. I just want to adjust the drape a little by pushing the polygons and was hoping that the cloth brush would give me natural looking folds.
Thanks for your advice - I'll figure it out another way.
Have you tried adjusting the brush settings and changing the deformation type to push or something other than drag? Sounds like it should work for what you want then.
I added some clothlike folds into the cushions of this chair for example with the cloth brush.
That is what I will try next but I'm into a long render of dozens of frames which takes hours on my GTX 1070. It seems such a trivial task but the head scratching always seems to come with the most trivial seeming tasks. Earlier I was trying to figure out how to save a single frame from the DAZ Studio timeline but it is practically impossible to save one as a scene or scene subset. I remembered that I'd seen (and commented on) other threads about this in the past but I don't think I ever found a workable solution. Again - something so trivial to save a frame from the timeline - after all, the timeline is a series of scenes - but DAZ can't seem to provide the feature despite many requests.
I love the cloth brush! Have definitely used it for morphs and to tweak fabric in scenes I render in Blender.
Worth noting the cloth brush is in *very* active development. You definitely want to be using the latest version of blender or the daily builds.
as it is dependent on geometry dforce meshes tend to work the best (as dforce also operates on resolution) alternatively low res meshes with a multiresolution modifier. like dforce or pretty much any simulation even topology are preferred (meshes with areas with ver sparce and very dense meshes mixed together tend not to work well)
it works best if you are generally comfortable with sculpt mode already - while it doesn't specifically require you to be familiar with masking in sculpt mode it does work way, way, better if you are
general advice:
So that is all very encouraging.
I am quite used to using the basic sculpt brushes for making morphs - most commonly for fixing poke through or adding wind-blown effects to loose clothing. So I will definitely give it another try.
The garment I had exported was designed for dForce and therefore had enough polyons to show the effect. I was not, at the time, aware that I could select different "modes" for the same brush so that is something I still need to play with.
I'd appreciate your comments on collision if possible. As I said, I tried to enable it but it either crashed Blender or it slowed the operation of the brush so much that it was unuseable. I was using the latest stable release though, not the development version. Have you tried collision enabled or do you find it easy enough to avoid intersection with the figure?
Lastly, I notice you mention Multires and that was something I asked about earlier in the thread but it seems that it will corrupt the vertex count so any attempt at importing back to DAZ Studio as a morph will fail. Is that your experience or do you have a workaround?
The workaround is not to apply any modifier that changes the mesh resolution if you are going to export it back as a morph. You can use the multires modifier to temporarily make it easier to work with a dense mesh in Blender, but once you apply the modifier, it will not work as a morph. Try it yourself on something as simple as a high res sphere or any object for that matter. Add the multires modifier with, then apply it, then see if that result works as a morph on the original.
I did have another try with the Cloth Brush and had much more success although I did not try it with collision enabled again. I have a feeling that some development needs to take place before that is a viable option.
Nevertheless, working with the different deformation modes of the Cloth Brush was a revelation and I was able to grab/inflate etc. and, along with the regular sculpt brushes, I was able to make a pretty decent job of it.
My 2021 wishlist for DAZ Studio now has dForce manipulation of the cloth during the simulation right at the top, however.