3D Clothing - Fun Fun!

I ended up picking up one of my low poly models I made a while back (no hair, no eyes, no brains, no worries!) and did some 3D clothing on him for fun last weekend. Yes he is kinda floating in the air. I find that many people find clothing to be a daunting task when starting out, but it doesn't have to be!

There are a few approaches to making clothing.

1. You can take your base mesh and extract parts from it to form shirts, pants, boots, ect... This would most likely be the simplest approach.

2. Another way to make clothing is to use a similar method that we use when retopologizing a model. You can create clothing by adding geometry above the surface and having them snap to the shape of your mesh. This gives you a lot more freedom than step 1. You'll have to toggle your snapping when extruding out for clothing that doesn't hug the body.

(You might be able to use your clothing shell in a cloth simulator as well! Give it a try.)

3. Sculpt clothing! I've seen people who're really good at doing this!

4. My preferred method is to create patterns using 2D planes, then sewing them over the mesh and simulating. You can do this in different software or even blender.

What about animating with clothing? Well that is simple. If you made your clothing on-top of your mesh in a neutral form you can just move the clothing with the body, however it might not look as natural. Another method would be to simulate your clothing with movement from your character and create an animation for the clothing itself in relation to the character's movements. Keep in mind that higher poly counts matter for quality. You can also bake high poly clothing. Your character mesh animation, and your clothing mesh animation should be in sync when combined. Beyond that you can take advantage of an actual cloth system within an engine, but consider how expensive it is to use. It's common to have static clothing attached to the character, while leaving other parts to be simulated.

What about folds? Well, if your simulation quality is good enough you don't have to worry about it, but the quality of your folds comes at a cost in higher poly counts. If you're using method 1, 2 or 3 then I would suggest using sculpting tools to create natural looking folds, unless you're able to do with with edge tools.

There could be other methods out there and I would love to read what you personally use to make clothing.