How to model quality cloth with opacity?

cjpeg

Hello...
I tried to create cloth, but every time I try - the output is total garbage. Where can I find good tutorials of how to create cloth with opacity and torn edges? Please help me, along with organic this is what I mostly wanted to create... Help...

Eric Chadwick

Post your results, along with some info about how you're rendering it. We can't help without seeing your attempts.

Neox

i guess that image is the attempt?

i think you got an okay base here but the torn edge is pretty lazy, you can see that randomly rotated brush alpha and you have a cubic ton of floating bits. if you erased all those floating bits it should already look a lot more like torn cloth

hm after rereading, if this is your goal and not your attempt, open marvelous designer (or use nay other cloth sim, its just a square plane after all) , drop a plane on the floor, pull it around. export, apply a texture with alpha. there is really not much to it. but mayb i don't understand the issue.

cjpeg

This IS my attempt, but it's garbage. I can't create torn edges and also I don't see back faces so my cloth looks very flat. And I don't know how to create renders with opacity in marmoset or other softwares, this render is from substance painter.
Eh...

Eric Chadwick

Ok. Show your reference then, what you're trying to achieve.

Neox

the torn edges are the weakest part here, they are mindless and messy

the backfaces are simple, duplicate the mesh and invert the normals, tada backfaces  

in Marmoset just use the exported alpha from substance in transparency. marmoset does dithered alpha not softalpha tho, if you want true soft alpha us ea translucent material in Unreal for instance, which i wouldnt recommend for various reasons (sorting might be a problem at some angles, its more expensive etc), a dithered solution with temporal AA will look similarly good and will cost a lot less.

after all the question is, how important is that piece really to your scene?

Noren

Are you trying to create the torn edges procedurally or with some kind of shortcut? Else I fail to see the big hurdle.

cjpeg

Eric Chadwick said:

Ok. Show your reference then, what you're trying to achieve.

  I don't use references, just my head.

Neox said:

The scene is not important, at first I wanted to create an object lying on the piece of cloth, but after a day of trying to simulate and create cloth I gave up and did just an object.
I do it now for experience for later projects.

Noren said:

Are you trying to create the torn edges procedurally or with some kind of shortcut? Else I fail to see the big hurdle.

I am not sure, I just wanted to create torn edges. Simple rectangle cloth looks terrible, and if I paint opacity with some brush the result is garbage (above).

Are there good tutorials for that? I am useless.

Noren

Well then do like Neox suggested, erase the floating bits or redo it with a smaller brush or one with a more fitting alpha/pattern with bigger spacing or by stamping each one by hand so you see what you are doing. Think about what parts would be ripped. E. g. paint rips on a path trough single strands, not knots or dense embroidery). You can then cut some of those rips into the mesh along the painted ones, so you can pull apart the edges without having to distort the texture itself.

Neox

cjpeg said:
I don't use references, just my head.

Why is that?

zachagreg

If you don't use references then that is what it looks like in your head, in which case you've done what you've set out to do. Regardless of whether or not you have a set of references in a folder for a main end all image you should be looking at how real fabric like this tears in order to mimic it to a realistic effect. 

As far as backfaces go Neox's solution solves that issue.

As far as the edges go it comes down to taking what you've got currently and studying how those edges come apart and tear and then replicating that in your object. It comes down to just doing the work. If you're looking for a kind of tech artist approach to it that doesn't involve the manual work, Painter is not the best for it. However the most recent updates do have directional based mesh gradient tools to work with. The problem with that is generating a decent mask based upon the object would be more complicated than just doing it by hand and if you're not experienced in doing those sort of things would take longer anyway.

TL;DR Gather reference and work from that. Images in our mind are distorted through memory and aren't accurate to real life.

Mark Dygert

cjpeg said:

Are there good tutorials for that? I am useless.

There won't always be a tutorial telling you how to build "the thing" that you're trying to build. Tutorials teach you methods and techniques not how to make specific things. "Ahh damn it, I need to make a 2019 Toyota Corolla, but all I can find is a tutorial about making a 2015 Toyota Corolla. Close up shop, no one is getting paid"

Tutorials give you tools, sometimes they come with step by step instructions to build a thing, but don't get caught up in thinking that is the core of what they are teaching you. Take those techniques and adapt them to what you're doing, expand on them. Experiment and learn to push what you know in different directions. 

Starting with reference like others suggested, is a great way to get the process rolling, it starts to define your end goal. Once you know that you can start to figure out how you are going to get there.

So you're goal is "object on cloth".
What is the style you're going for? Chunky Stylized like overwatch? Hyper realistic? Low poly faceted? 
What is the object? Is it a flamethrower? A banana? A box? What is it? Is it even important?
What kind of cloth? 
What does the cloth interact with? Is it laying on a flat plane? Draped over an object?
What tools do you have access to? 
What tools and techniques would people use to build that object, deal with that issue, ?

You are struggling to trim the fabric. So how do people that work with frilly cloth deal with the problem? Do they trim it with lace embroidery? How could you replicate that technique? Can you make a brush that stamps the pattern? Does one already exist? Do you model the embroidery? Draw it in 2D? Start brain storming! Ask yourself questions and start answering them. 

Trust me when I say, no one really wants to help someone who is an unmotivated lump on the ground, just moaning about how useless everything is. 

Alex_J

Hit the books for a bit longer. There's probably a lot of free or cheap learning content out their that will give you idea's on how to approach this better. Like mentioned, there won't be a specific tutorial to guide you through this exact thing, but if you spend several more months just consuming any and all learning content you can find, you'll have a deeper well of knowledge to start from. When you feel defeated, take a break for a few hours or maybe the rest of the day. Allow yourself to recharge. You'll get there.

At some point, after completing sooo many tutorials, you'll start getting really antsy because every time you think about something you'd like to make, you can think of multiple ways you might go about making it. That's where you want to be as a beginner. Of course, when you actually start trying to make things, you run into problems, but you'll have enough knowledge by then to know how to work through problems without getting flat out stuck. 


Also, always work from reference. It's just silly not to. I wouldn't model my own hand without reference.