Sculpting Cloth - Desperately Need Advice

[dustinbrown]

I'm relatively new to sculpting cloth, and I have a piece I'm working on that includes a good amount of cloth. I've made a TON of attempts, each one being as bad as the last, then I start all over again. It's holding me up. I need to get through this and have sculpted cloth that doesn't draw negative attention to itself.

I've watched Richard Smith's Gnomon video (http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/products/tutorials/rsm02/).

Mashru Mishu has a couple of good videos on his blog (http://www.fx81.com/blog.htm).

There are some really inspiring references on the Masterful Drapery thread on CA (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=129496).

And of course every time I approach a particular type of cloth I hit Flickr and Google images and I download a ton of excellent visual photographic references. So my struggle doesn't stem from a lack of doing my homework. I understand the basic concepts. It's the execution that I'm struggling with. It doesn't seem like it should be this difficult.

I've tried everything I can think of. Working at various subdivision levels, using various brushes, adding gravity to my stokes. Everything I do ends up looking jacked up. When I watch someone who knows what they're doing, they seem to breeze through it pretty quickly. I think I may be over working it, but I'm not sure how to avoid that.

-Dustin

[Oddin]

I'm no expert on the matter, and can't be of any help I'm afraid.
But I think you should post a few images of your attempts so people can try and figure out wehre you're going wrong. I realize that you may be under NDA or something, but still you can try posting some parts that don't reveal the big picture.
Best of luck

Edit:
It might be a better idea to post this in the Sculpting section?

[qsort]

Hi dustinbrown,

this might help you - a great tutorial and some brushes as well from Benjamin Leitgeb aka Selwy.

http://www.selwy.com/2009/zbrush-clothes-tutorial/

[dustinbrown]

I thought the sculpting thread was just for posting work. Didn't know it was appropriate to ask questions there. I've seen Selwy's tutorial, I forgot to mention that one, but thanks for sharing it. I think I've gotten all I'm going to get (for now) out of watching other people's videos on sculpting cloth. I need to hit a milestone in my own ability to do it now.

Here's a link (http://www.dustinbrown.com/wp-content/gallery/wip/engineer_wip13.jpg) to what I'm working on.

[womball]

What is the material your trying to create? This will effect the crispness and style of the folds. Also your fold appear not to be affected by gravity. I have a Burne Hogarth book called Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery. He goes into a lot of detail about them.

[dustinbrown]

Looking at the concept art, it looks to me like a medium weight cotton material.

One thing I am just now starting to notice is that unlike sculpting anatomy, most people seem to start working at a high subdivision level when they sculpt cloth. I also think I need to give more attention to each side of each fold, top and bottom. I've just sort of been laying strokes down, smoothing, and going back over the strokes. The result is pretty messy.

[womball]

Do you have any decent references of t a medium weight cotton material? Also you might want to use the inflate brush more. You can create new wrinkles with masking.

[Ace-Angel]

Burne Hogarth - Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery is your one stop for learning them.

Zbrush - Use Lazy-Mouse.
Mudbox - Use Steady-Stroke.

Alternatively: Use custom Alphas/Displacement maps from picture and such. Bring them in Photoshop, clean up shadows and highlights and voila and use those.

EDIT: OH, forgot, you could always (pending on cloth) run a Simulation or Havok of sorts?

[crazyfool]

practice practice practice practice practice practice :)

Personally I like to get some good reference and then sculpt in the major forms I want with claytubes (no alpha) and then work in with lazy mouse. Im still learning myself but I find it just like anatomy work, whats this doing, hows it reacting, whats underneath, wheres the tension. Wrinkle density can help aswell, if you are sculpting thin cloth then small thin folds will sell it, and lots of them at tension points, where as large cloth you will notice it has big and bold folds that dont need much work to look great.

My buddy swears by selwys cloth brushes combined with lazy mouse, gonna try it on my next piece I think :)

[turbo]

I'm no expert, but one trick I use that I think would work well with your pieces is to smooth out the ends of each fold.

It really helps to blend them in with the rest of your cloth and makes them a little more natural. .

Just something to try, other than that it's just a matter of practice.

[dustinbrown]

Thanks all the feedback guys.

My buddy swears by selwys cloth brushes combined with lazy mouse

Heh, yeah I've been trying to avoid using too many fancy custom brushes. I've heard it said that people in the illustration world who use fancy Photoshop brushes as a crutch tend to have a gimmicky look to their work. I don't want to fall in to any traps, I feel like I should be able to get by just fine using what's available if I truly know what I'm doing.

[BigJohn]

You should definitely start a thread in the WIP section. That's what it's there for. Can who WIP images, they don't have to be finished-looking, and get some crits and comments on them. That way you can improve and iterate as you're going.

[LetterRip]

Hmm I'm not expert either, but to me there are two issues

1) Your cloth doesn't follow natural buckle points

Ie look at the left knee of your engineer - the folds look totally at random (folds only happen where cloth is forced to buckle), have no natural shape (why are there fold on the front of the knee?)

2) Your cloth doesn't radiate out based on stress/strain, all of your folds don't seem to match the stress points in your cloth.

Ie look at satchel over the right knee. You actually get fairly decent radiations of the stress from the buckle, although the depressions are far to prominent. All of the rest of your depressions/folds in the satchel look totally unmotivated and are enormous.

The gloves creases look ok, as do most of the helmet creases. The sleeves look fairly unmotivated. The crease on his ribs is the most natural looking one that you've done.

[MM]

i have been asked a lot about custom brushes/alphas/special techniques etc. but honestly sculpting cloth is all about understanding how cloth folds work.

99% of the time i will work with absolutely no custom brushes.

just study folds and there is no easy way than looking at the cloths you are wearing right now. if it helps then buy a full size mirror.

people tend to forget that the information they are looking for is lot of times available right in front of them and there is no need to google or buy dvds etc.

also, AREA released these videos i made a while ago and contains some cloth sculpting among other things. login is required.

http://area.autodesk.com/tutorials/making_of_riot_police_chapter_2_sculpting

[dustinbrown]

@BigJohn: I do have a thread for that piece in the WIP section (The Engineer), but I figured I'd get more cloth-related information if I made a thread specific to the question.

@LetterRip: All valid points, thanks man!

@Mashru Mishu: Great advice, and thanks for the link to your videos on AREA. I've mostly been sticking with Standard, Smooth, Pinch, and Flatten brushes in ZBrush. I also use store a morph and use the Morph brush to quickly erase bits I don't like.

[shadowmonkey]

start a new thread in sculpting post examples go from there,use lazy mouse and soft fall offs you can get good results with zbrush standard brushes.Ive not used it myself but if using Max sim cloth might be a good starting point also

[dustinbrown]

Ok I'll continue this discussion in the WIP section ==> here (http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?p=205816#post205816) <==

[BigJohn]

Ahh yeah, I meant in the Sculpting WIP forum. I spend more time there than the 3D-WIP forum, and I know others that look there for sculpting stuff. So that's why I didn't see it.

But that thread works too

[zeke3d]

I hear ya with the cloth, also to consider

1. How much time where you given to do the task, if its a hour, day, week or month long task will determine the level of quality and even technique you should use.

If your like me you will push for quality, but in a production scenario consistency and rate also play a large role.

2. How hero is said cloth, and how long will it be onscreen for. Again, masterpieces and real production can differ this way.

Ultimately always do the best you can in the amount of time you are given and you will get better over time.

Peoples personal projects or art in general can at times be deceiving in this way, people take a minute to take it all in, and assume it took that long and was that easy. other than that I generally agree with all that's been said here.

[BIGFISH043]

using gravity brush option in zBrush give great results for cloth :)