Is this tool really used in the industry? How does it compare with. lets say, Maya nCloth?
yes. Can't say who, but we had a few AAA and Gen4 productions using this tool (they're on MD's client list). We totally ditched Maya nCloth for it. It's no contest at all. Marvelous is just great for props - curtains, tents, drapery, bags, pillows, nets, etc. and very fast to iterate. Of course it's also awesome for characters.
The quadrangulate is great news. In the past we had to re-topo, and even with a scripted solution there was still clean up involved, which cost time (still better than nCloth though).
The triangle meshes are tricky to use further down the pipeline - adding subdivision, displacement, additional details or thickness etc. are all possible issues. Some studios may still use it as a full solution, others may only use it as an intermediate step in the pipeline.
Played around with the beta a bit last night, its pretty easy to learn. Here's the open beta link if anyone is interested, it runs till the 13th of September.
The triangle meshes are tricky to use further down the pipeline - adding subdivision, displacement, additional details or thickness etc. are all possible issues. Some studios may still use it as a full solution, others may only use it as an intermediate step in the pipeline.
Do you think it will become more suited for simulation since they've added Quadrangulate (had to copy paste dat word!)?
I dunno if it'll help pipeline adaption... You're still locking yourself out of your main 3D app, the cloth mesh still won't have thickness (although you can easily model a new version and wrap it to the MD exported mesh) and as I hear the auto quadrangulate isn't that good in practice...
Honestly I would rather use zbrush for cloth folds any day over using MD. I know that would probably sound crazy to some considering in a lot of cases you can get faster and more realistic results using MD, but I just prefer the more artistic side of sculpting them, the MD workflow seems to 'automated' for me. That said I would be willing to give v. 4 a try
Honestly I would rather use zbrush for cloth folds any day over using MD. I know that would probably sound crazy to some considering in a lot of cases you can get faster and more realistic results using MD, but I just prefer the more artistic side of sculpting them, the MD workflow seems to 'automated' for me. That said I would be willing to give v. 4 a try
That's what we hear from some of our artists, and as an (ex) production artist I can totally relate. But what we hear from our clients is that for them the money counts. If you get comparable quality faster, then, well, the concerns of the artist aren't worth much.
However the quality of MD is rarely okay right out of the box. We usually end up using MD as starting point for sculpting, where appropriate. This requires that whoever assigns tasks (and whoever works on them) is good at estimating which approach (purely ZB vs. hybrid) is faster.
But honestly, your argument "I enjoy it more" is rather weak, given the trend of getting costs down in every bigger productions.
Honestly I would rather use zbrush for cloth folds any day over using MD. I know that would probably sound crazy to some considering in a lot of cases you can get faster and more realistic results using MD, but I just prefer the more artistic side of sculpting them, the MD workflow seems to 'automated' for me. That said I would be willing to give v. 4 a try
when it came out i was against it too, people use it because it cuts time, not because they are against doing it by hand.
It was hardly an argument for or against, more a statement on personal preference - if you read what I said I actually mentioned I would still be trying out MD4.
Thomas - not a lot I don't think, I think Mashru uses it on occasion but his cloth sculpting is pretty awesome anyway
i needed to make some tents and truck canopies for a project and marvelous was a giant time saver, and the results were far better than most people can really hand produce via sculpting. i'm not a character guy, so it's a huge help for someone like me.
It was hardly an argument for or against, more a statement on personal preference
my bad. Good that you have an open mind. Many people don't and they stick with their preference, not always to their advantage. But I do understand your preference - that's the reason I'm in a way happy to not do too much art any more. While from a tech point of view new tools are awesome, they do sometimes take some of the fun away.
Sculpting realistic cloth folding by hand is very time consuming. It takes a lot of thinking about the forces being exerted on the cloth, and iterating slowly to get creasing and bunching in the right areas. MD is a great shortcut to getting started on that.
It doesn't deliver final sculpts, so going to Zbrush is pretty much a requirement. Zbrush can retopo the triangle meshes from MD with Zremesher and projection, but the quadrangulate feature makes that step unecessaary (if it works).
The reason MD doesn't ususally deliver final sculpts is because it creates realistic, pristine cloth for one pose. Real costumes fold differently in different poses, and your sculpt should usually suggest that. You also usually have secondary "baked in" wrinkles left over from those other poses, that it's good to go and sculpt in Zbrush.
MD also makes basically "perfect" UVs for putting a cloth pattern on something and have it follow the flow of the cloth. It can be useful later on down the pipeline for baking cloth patterns. Reprojecting in Zbrush loses that. Better to just keep those UVs with a good quad mesh from MD.
MD also gets very very slow at a level of complexity far below what Zbrush can handle.
All of these are reasons why the MD->Zbrush workflow is so powerful, and why quadrangulate is a nice feature to have directly in MD.
Knowing how to sculpt cloth is super important for character artists, and on some purity level I agree with torch, but I also have found that md is a huge time saver when it comes to making base meshes for your clothes and simulating top level wrinkles, which is amazing for freelance when speed is a factor.
Detailing still best done in zbrush, but md is just a super time saver if you're doing realistic work.
I also think that learning md before you have a cloth sculpting skill set could put a learning artist back.
I don't think making clothes in MD is less artistic at all, in fact it can be more artistic since it is so much easier to make major revisions. It also brings a level of precision that you can not achieve with Zbrush alone. It also allows you to re-use large amounts of work.
Pattern based virtual clothing software has been around for a very long time, it's just affordable for individuals now, might as well use the same stuff that the top fashion designers use imo.
Ultimately it's the artist's responsibility to insure that they're fully capable of doing the job, but when you have a tool available that significantly reduces the work involved, I can see how there would be great temptation, especially for young and less disciplined people, to forgo the more difficult path of actually learning how to do it manually.
Ok what is manual then? Should artists have to first know how to make cloth point by point, then build the polygons manually before moving onto Zbrush with it's automated point moving and geometry creation? At what point is it safe for artists to use modern tools?
Ok what is manual then? Should artists have to first know how to make cloth point by point, then build the polygons manually before moving onto Zbrush with it's automated point moving and geometry creation? At what point is it safe for artists to use modern tools?
faulty logic.
it isn't really automated point moving when you are digitally sculpting. an artist has to use their pen/mouse in their sculpting tools to move the points in the direction they want and as a result creating exactly what the artist wants.
it becomes truly automated when the result is not explicitly directed by the artist but the tool itself and created in the way the tool wants.
it is really simple logic, should not be that hard to understand.
in case of simulated cloth, the exact anatomy of the folds are pretty much out of your control. all you can control are the physical properties of the cloth, not which way you want each specific fold to go. that is why it is automated.
anyways, all that being said i am interested to trying out MD4. currently still on MD2 license. i have used it on few projects and wouldn't mind using it again in future if the project requires it. i do agree that one should know how to sculpt cloth manually first. actually this tool can also help you learn cloth sculpting since it can be good reference.
If it's faulty logic that Zbrushes brush engine provides an automated way of moving tons of points, then it is equally faulty that MD is automated. There are so many tools at your disposal in MD for shaping cloth there is no reason you can't get what you want.
If garment construction is faulty though you will find things difficult to control.
They show it being used for that sexy diamond dogs jacket.
I'll definitely play with this a bit when i get home, looks like it would be good for starting models. Probably makes it easier to play around with outfit ideas.
MD is ace, but it does require a fair knowledge of how creases should look even at the simming stage so that you adjust the patterns in the correct way, and whay it spits out needs finishing, no tension from stitching as an example and no memory folds, but as a very quick baseline start its ace.
Have they gotten rid of thickness in 4...i cant see it in the export options, not that I'm fussed, thickness was a pain in the arse. I have already been able to spit out a quad mesh, polygroup it and use pannel loops tp get a great base in a few clicks...way better than the triangulated work around. Symmetry...oh dear god symmetry...today was a good day
Have anyone experience with doing non clothing stuff in MD? I'm not very interested in doing clothes since I never do character but it would be ace to be able to do stuff like plastic trash bags and shit like that.. Just taking advantage of their physics engine pretty much..
i needed to make some tents and truck canopies for a project and marvelous was a giant time saver, and the results were far better than most people can really hand produce via sculpting. i'm not a character guy, so it's a huge help for someone like me.
MD is ace, but it does require a fair knowledge of how creases should look even at the simming stage so that you adjust the patterns in the correct way, and whay it spits out needs finishing, no tension from stitching as an example and no memory folds, but as a very quick baseline start its ace.
Memory folds can be done but they are a total pita and not worth simulating at this point in time imo. Tension from stitching is very easy though.
that kinda feels more like bunching from elastication than stitching tension tbh, maybe I'm just not eloquent enough with the fabric terms to describe what I mean. I do remember seeing that someone had done memory creases on a garment using internal lines once...at the time thought "nope!" crazy stuff!
Replies
Quadrangulate. Lawl, yeah !!
http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/cases/clients
From Blizzard cinematic bts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PlSEsGynvYg#t=1057
yes. Can't say who, but we had a few AAA and Gen4 productions using this tool (they're on MD's client list). We totally ditched Maya nCloth for it. It's no contest at all. Marvelous is just great for props - curtains, tents, drapery, bags, pillows, nets, etc. and very fast to iterate. Of course it's also awesome for characters.
The quadrangulate is great news. In the past we had to re-topo, and even with a scripted solution there was still clean up involved, which cost time (still better than nCloth though).
http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/event/MD4Beta
Do you think it will become more suited for simulation since they've added Quadrangulate (had to copy paste dat word!)?
That's what we hear from some of our artists, and as an (ex) production artist I can totally relate. But what we hear from our clients is that for them the money counts. If you get comparable quality faster, then, well, the concerns of the artist aren't worth much.
However the quality of MD is rarely okay right out of the box. We usually end up using MD as starting point for sculpting, where appropriate. This requires that whoever assigns tasks (and whoever works on them) is good at estimating which approach (purely ZB vs. hybrid) is faster.
But honestly, your argument "I enjoy it more" is rather weak, given the trend of getting costs down in every bigger productions.
when it came out i was against it too, people use it because it cuts time, not because they are against doing it by hand.
kwramm already said what i wanted to say, damn.
Thomas - not a lot I don't think, I think Mashru uses it on occasion but his cloth sculpting is pretty awesome anyway
my bad. Good that you have an open mind. Many people don't and they stick with their preference, not always to their advantage. But I do understand your preference - that's the reason I'm in a way happy to not do too much art any more. While from a tech point of view new tools are awesome, they do sometimes take some of the fun away.
Having said that after seeing the vids for the new version I was thinking "hmm... Wouldn't hurt to give it another try"
It doesn't deliver final sculpts, so going to Zbrush is pretty much a requirement. Zbrush can retopo the triangle meshes from MD with Zremesher and projection, but the quadrangulate feature makes that step unecessaary (if it works).
The reason MD doesn't ususally deliver final sculpts is because it creates realistic, pristine cloth for one pose. Real costumes fold differently in different poses, and your sculpt should usually suggest that. You also usually have secondary "baked in" wrinkles left over from those other poses, that it's good to go and sculpt in Zbrush.
MD also makes basically "perfect" UVs for putting a cloth pattern on something and have it follow the flow of the cloth. It can be useful later on down the pipeline for baking cloth patterns. Reprojecting in Zbrush loses that. Better to just keep those UVs with a good quad mesh from MD.
MD also gets very very slow at a level of complexity far below what Zbrush can handle.
All of these are reasons why the MD->Zbrush workflow is so powerful, and why quadrangulate is a nice feature to have directly in MD.
Detailing still best done in zbrush, but md is just a super time saver if you're doing realistic work.
I also think that learning md before you have a cloth sculpting skill set could put a learning artist back.
Pattern based virtual clothing software has been around for a very long time, it's just affordable for individuals now, might as well use the same stuff that the top fashion designers use imo.
Ok what is manual then? Should artists have to first know how to make cloth point by point, then build the polygons manually before moving onto Zbrush with it's automated point moving and geometry creation? At what point is it safe for artists to use modern tools?
faulty logic.
it isn't really automated point moving when you are digitally sculpting. an artist has to use their pen/mouse in their sculpting tools to move the points in the direction they want and as a result creating exactly what the artist wants.
it becomes truly automated when the result is not explicitly directed by the artist but the tool itself and created in the way the tool wants.
it is really simple logic, should not be that hard to understand.
in case of simulated cloth, the exact anatomy of the folds are pretty much out of your control. all you can control are the physical properties of the cloth, not which way you want each specific fold to go. that is why it is automated.
anyways, all that being said i am interested to trying out MD4. currently still on MD2 license. i have used it on few projects and wouldn't mind using it again in future if the project requires it. i do agree that one should know how to sculpt cloth manually first. actually this tool can also help you learn cloth sculpting since it can be good reference.
If garment construction is faulty though you will find things difficult to control.
Oh cool! I saw this used for Metal Gear solid 5
They show it being used for that sexy diamond dogs jacket.
I'll definitely play with this a bit when i get home, looks like it would be good for starting models. Probably makes it easier to play around with outfit ideas.
Have they gotten rid of thickness in 4...i cant see it in the export options, not that I'm fussed, thickness was a pain in the arse. I have already been able to spit out a quad mesh, polygroup it and use pannel loops tp get a great base in a few clicks...way better than the triangulated work around. Symmetry...oh dear god symmetry...today was a good day
Memory folds can be done but they are a total pita and not worth simulating at this point in time imo. Tension from stitching is very easy though.