No topstitches or buttonholes in the Render (also not in C4D)
Hello, everybody!
I have some problems when rendering in CLO (I see it well in the 2D and 3D screen but then in the render they don't appear) and also some bugs in C4D, (Mac and Particles in 5):
1- The topstitches and buttonholes don't appear in the render.
2- A black mark is formed around the neck (there I have put an inner line to be able to bend the neck well)
3- By the way, when I opened the project again, I can't see in the 3D window the stitches and buttonholes well, why? When I first did it, yes, I saw them and everything was fine.
4- When I export it in OBJ format (Only the selected) and import it into Cinema 4D, the topstitches do not appear very well and the buttonholes appear as if they were in a white rectangle. Is there a solution for these two things?
Also in C4D, it don't export the file of the normal and displacement maps, then I have to fix them by hand inside the C4D. Is there any solution to export everything better? What is the best way to export to C4D?
I would really appreciate it if you could help me! Thank you!
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Make sure you have the Thick Textured Surface option enabled in CLO. You are seeing the Textured Surface only from what I can see in your images.
As far as C4D, the alpha channel (transparency) is not being interpreted correctly in C4D from the images in CLO. Check that the textures for the buttonholes have the necessary Alpha channels and they are correctly plugged in C4D.
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Thank you for your quick response!
I changed to "Thick Texture Surface" as you told me but everything remains the same... ¿?
Can you be more concise about how I have to check the Alpha channel on C4D? Do you know any tutorial?
Thanks again!
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Let's go one step at a time. You need to make sure that you are in Thick Textured Surface mode. Then, AFTER you've selected the Thick Textured Surface, restart the rendering engine and check again. The black line in the folding line for the collar should be gone.
Now, about your topstitches and buttonholes, what do you mean by not seeing them correctly? If they are there, they are there. If not, you won't be able to see them, unless they are too thin and that is why you don't see it when rendering. Increase the thread thickness on the topstitches and check again.
About C4D, I can't help as I don't use it, although the principles are the same.
When you export the 3D objects out of CLO make sure you export all the trims. The PBR texture maps can or can't work straight out of the export depending on the software you are opening the OBJ in, in this case C4D. My suggestion is to truly understand your destination software and not depend on things working plug-and-play.
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knitstudium from the 1st post you show it looks like you the sewing line type on the collar wrong, causing a gap rather that sewing it together tightly. Try making that the same line type as the main shirt front between joints. That should resolve the gap on the collar. There are two basic sewing line types > one that sews panels together tight (thin mesh) , the other that accounts for the bending over of a pattern piece in sewing that adds in the patterns offset thickness on the joint.
When you export a thin mesh object you can apply thickness modifiers in you next applications (app) modifier stack to add back in the thick textured view you see in CLO3D. If you make this the same value as the additional rendered thickness on the pattern pieces you used in CLO3D the model will render exactly the same as it does in the CLO3D thick render preview. Check with your app how it adds in thickness to a thin surface and make sure you apply that as a preset onto your model garment after you have exported from CLO3D. Your other option is the export as thick welded, but it may introduce a huge number of additional mesh faces that could cause editing issues in your next app, so choose your workflow that best suits your modelling app C4D.
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Thank you both!
I managed to fix the black band on the edge of the neck. The error occurs with the line I used to make the bend and I sewed it back on, too. Thanks again!
I also did what Pablo told me, activating the Thick Textured Surface, but I couldn't get it to work, I don't understand well what you mean by "restart the rendering engine and check again", I did the render again and I still don't see the topstitches in the 3D window (I do see the buttonholes in the 3D window) but in the render I can't see either the topstitches nor the buttonholes. Any idea or help? By the way, my mother tongue is Spanish, not English, if you can try to be clear in the explanation. Thanks again!
As for Cinema 4D, thanks for your help but I will get to it when, at least, I do the Clo render well.
Thank you!
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I think I've figured out the possible cause of the stitch display malfunction.
Previously the mac was blocked and shut down suddenly (I think it was a matter of excessive heat, I never had this happen before, with CLO working is happening to me regularly).
When I turned it on again and opened the CLO application, it told me that if I wanted to recover the file, I said yes, and I think something happened to it in that process (I think it generates some error) and I say this because I think the same thing happened to me with another file and I saw that something was wrong with the tapes around the seams that I had placed .Anyway, I don't know how to fix it, but I will generate a clean file again...
As for the rendering of the topstitches and buttonholes, they still do not appear in the render.
Greetings!
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A good way to stay on top of your CPU or GPU over heating is to ensure you have a small bit of software as a temperature gauge that sets the alarm to work at specific values leading up to high temperature, or alert you to a pending crisis, so that you start to get a sense of when a common work processes triggers this event, that way you can start to modify how you work on that task. On most tubo CPU chipsets you will find the more realtime cloth simulation you do the harder the CPU will labor. You can spread how the CPU works across cores (operating system) so you could limited that if it's consistently an issue, and you can choose to change how you work.
Workstyle makes a big difference to a laptops ability to overheat, as does physical positioning of the laptop.
Workstyle > You can generally set the CPU or GPU to do the CG work, and in CLO3D that is no different, so choose which to use when. If you use the CPU all the time you might find it heats more than using the GPU for basic garment assembly simulation. So only use the CPU for the final highly detailed simulation, rather than use it for all the general purpose assembly simulation. And a big factor on heat for the CPU is - crooning over your work, yes that is a real thing. So don't keep your CPU working unnecessarily, be specific and get on with doing your work efficiently, your CPU will thank you as it has a limited life span if you are the latter type of designer - 'a 'crooner'.
Physical positioning of laptop > So does this matter ? You bet it does, make sure you clean out your laptop vents from accumulated dust from time to time, don't place it on an uneven fabric surface that blocks all air circulation, (get out of bed when you work from home ) keep it elevated on a insulated hard flat surface (not your lap) so the vents all have ample input and output spaces to get rid of heat. And make sure you listen to your computer - as the turbo clicks in think, should I change my workflow, or stop that maths intensive collision simulation for a moment - yes.
Most of the heat issues are down to using poor work method, and the wrong settings when running CLO3D, use GPU over CPU for general work-in-progress workflow, and use the CPU simulation sparingly for that final high quality simulation. Then when rendering ensure you choose how to spread the resources (hardware) across the time it will take - maybe limit the size of the image and then push it to render in the cloud at larger size. And when it comes to simulating the cloth garment, don't overdo it. Be efficient, stop looking at your work too much, change the physical simulation 'time' steps so they are perhaps less intensive for general work, so get to know what settings can reduce the strain on the available resources.
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Thank you very much for your extensive response and your time.
Your message has been clear and concise, and has made it clear to me how to solve part of it. So I'll take your notes at face value, as it has never happened to me in my Macbook Pro (2015) that it was turned off by a hot issue since I bought it in that year.
I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy but I prefer the Apple's operating system to Windows. Although it's true that I recognize that I'm a little disappointed with Apple since CLO is super slow, since Apple encapsulates its laptops (which its reasons will have) I can't increase its RAM and I can't use an external NVIDIA-based eGPU, since Apple doesn't deal with them for some reason that I don't care.
My computer is already several years old, it works fine (no comments when I use CLO) and I am happy with it but as it is already starting to lag behind and I want to focus on working on CLO and 3D, I hope I can soon get a new computer and even if I don't like it it might have to be a Windows computer.
Again, thank you very much for everything.
Greetings!0 -
In Australia the temperature can hit 45C. So cooling for a laptop is very important on cloth collision. Unlike most other compute processes, physical cloth simulation is hard on the CPU in terms of processor workload. But there are certainly tips and tricks to get around that. Mainly great air circulation, regular cleaning of the laptop vents, a good stand that pushes additional air in on the hardware side, then workflow changes - not so much CPU simulation, but GPU simulation. You can also cheat the heat buildup by dialing down how many CPU cores are used for the cloth simulation, there is a setting for that in CLO3D. So try not using all your CPU cores, that should lessen the heat buildup (energy) flowing through the CPU and reduce the heat , and you may not notice the performance fall off in the cloth simulation. So there are plenty of things to try out.
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When you export from Clo to Cinema 4d, you need to change the topstitch type from obj to texture, then it exports as material. Then in c4d, you put the alpha stitch png into opacity. This is the way I do right now for the top stitches.. As far as the buttonholes I am still trying to figuring out that .. Pablo , how you export the buttonholes to blender?
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I live in the north of Spain but I summer in the south where the temperatures are also high. It has been a great help to me how to lower the temperature of the computer, at least so that it doesn't turn off suddenly. As I said, when Clo restarts I have the feeling that the security file has some kind of error and then it seems that the stitches are not displayed correctly. I take note of your advice.
I have been with Mac for several years but this is possibly the last straw. Most likely I'll switch to a Windows PC laptop (gaming type to my knowledge) with an NVIDIA card and hopefully it'll be upgradeable (it's something Apple shouldn't have done, shutting down their computers totally). Besides, according to you and the comments of people who use Clo and 3D software, the mac we will have to leave it to other kind of users. It is also possible that for the same price of a mac, I can buy a PC something more powerful, as Apple, day after day is increasing its prices.
Thanks again for your help!
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Thanks for your help!
I'm a basic C4D user and also trying Blender. I'd like to decide on one but I'm still thinking about it!
Something I haven't done right, since it didn't work, I attach screenshots to explain myself.1- I have selected the object "Topstitch" and changed the "Type" of OBJ to TEXTURE as you say.
2- Then I went to FILE/EXPORT/OBJ, and exported the document.
3- Then I opened it in C4D with the option "MERGE". As the garment only had one texture, I removed the opacity and therefore the main fabric appears on the garment but I still don't see the topstitches.Do I have to do anything else?
In Blender the operation is the same?
Has anyone tried it on KeyShot?
I hope we can find a solution for the buttonholes too!I'd appreciate your help! Thank you.
Greetings!
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when I export I select thick option and also click unified UV coordinates. And when merge in C4d, it shows up as Material. and then I make sure the material tag selected UVW mapping. The stitches first shows up on c4d like a strip , I use octane render in C4d so, I add alpha stitch png image into opacity node. and change the type to alpha then it shows up more like stitches.
I never used blender neither but I assume it should be similar steps , not sure of course .. Buttonholes don't show up at all.. I am still searching for the buttonholes if I find any answer I will add on here.
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Thanks, I don't have Octane, but I tried it and at least now I can see the topstitches. Little by little I'm going to investigate so I can stay just like I did at CLO.
What bothers me the most is that the seams (the joints sewn between one piece of fabric and another), the seams appear flat!!! Do you know if there is an easy solution? (since I don't have much C4D).
Thanks again!
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great! i am happy to hear you see the topstitch now.. even if you dont have octane, probably it works same with other render in C4d.. the seams look flat? hmm sorry I didint understand your question though..
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Sorry, my English isn't very good.
I mean, the sewing line or seamline doesn't appear correctly, as if there wasn't a cut. Do you understand it now?Thanks!
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i dont know, it doesnt happen on mine I guess, do you give thickness on Clo before you export on some parts of the garment?
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Thanks!
Indeed, I have given it thickness, I will try to make changes until I get it!
Thanks again!0 -
You can avoid all of this.
In CLO3D you can bake the top stitching down to the (diffuse texture image map) for the pattern pieces in your model according to the UV layout of the pattern pieces in the 2D drafting window. If you select topstitch > type > texture (rather than object). Then export the garment, and DO NOT export topstitch > the cloth diffuse texture and topstitch image will be baked down to the diffuse map. Select a pixel image resolution that allows your top-stitch to appear at a crisp resolution eg: 4096px + (and add in a little extra texture fill bleed 1-3mm) to the pattern map.
When you then open up your model in your modelling application > assign the diffuse map to the shader material for that garment UV and you will have your top-stitch texture in that image > baked.
Thus avoiding the messy tile map seam strips (below), when exporting the top-stitch as separate elements.
And if you are going to bake down a stitch it may be better to do that from the 3D top-stitching model rather than the 2D tile map of the top stitch, so you can introduce more detail. Or export the stitch as an internal line to stroke in with your own custom stitch workflow outside of CLO3D in your texture editing app. That ensures your top stitch tiling is not set to a fixed pitch or tile map width and size that is exported from CLO3D based on the type of top-stitch you set. The advantage of stroking internal top-stitch lines is the width, pitch and offset stay within your texturing control at any pitch and scale or offset.
You can make your own high quality top stitching to use in your 3D modeler using addons like Decal Machine to stroke in all the detail (far greater resoltion than you can do in CLO3D > with a few clicks) see video >> [seam decals]
So ask yourself - Is this best done inside CLO3D or outside CLO3D ? Or should it be kept to simple line references (yes) to enable higher quality -non destructive top-stitch workflows in the texture cycle of a garments creation.
The massive advantage to this workflow (the same approach I use from MD over the last 5+ years) is you can keep all your stitching as decals from high poly 3D stitch models - which can be as complex as you want, with all the edge, needle hole, pucker, yarn, transparency etc managed to colorways, so it is all editable at any time in the finished 3D model for baking down or working at high resolution for the top stitch untill you need to bake down for a still or low res texture.
You can simply convert the object nurb that you export from CLO3D into a grease-pencil object then apply a decal. Keeping the entire topstitch workflow non-destructive into final rendering. And you can share these custom top-stitch libraries you create between softwares. I have 400+ seams the last time I counted them ... I should release them, so you can create some pretty funky stuff. Makes what is in CLO3D look pretty boring as almost all garments have seam and edge detailing that dictates the quality of the final visual. I get all that across a garment in less than 5 minutes - finished and fully editable in realtime - about 50X faster than that process in CLO3D.
Above the internal line is now stroked with this panel decal, (that is like the roll edge normal you have in CLO3D) you can smooth this polymesh to suit your model surface curvature. The normal edge radii can be totally controlled as you work in realtime so you can judge the final look. Blindingly fast and incredible resolution, for all camera angles. It's a no brainier workflow.
Easy to swap out the decal to a new material (eg: metal piping ?) from a library of fabric effect and trim panel joints with any stitch type etc. and to place in all those awkward normal's, reflectivity (see above) that soft roll into pattern joints, additional high gathered pucker, etc.
All the tricky stuff you might only see inside the CLO3D vray render engine with a lot of effort can be laid in a single click and changed in a single click. So this is very easy to do, and can throw out some incredibly complex trim to pattern edge detailing when you make your own custom library of stitches to match your fabric textures in your custom library.
No matter how close the camera gets the quality will always stay good. These topstitch details are tiny in size keeping your project size minimal, yet highly detailed, and better quality than you can do in CLO3D.
Simple low quality saddle seam stitch (above) with ambient occlusion in the gap. You can stroke any MD line in less than a second, and also change all the elements in realtime. Then (below) shift to more complex mixes of seam pucker and stitching. You can get far better quality than using vray, by making your own custom stitch and seam library- much, much better,
Really easy to drop in via stroking an existing object nurb, hand placing, and editing at any time - all non destructive, all the texture maps working as one .
Here (Above) I use the same approach to add in a full elastic stitch map with randomness in the tile mapping (procedural) with fold-back, gathering, and transition from opaque (alpha map) to transparency of the main cloth panel so it looks a seemless transition, with no visual gaps between the fabric tiles and top stitch and edging effect (gathered elastic) texture. You can really take it all the way to this level of detail. In a single click. More time to do other garments.
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Great post Ottoline. Thanks :)
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I should show how to create all that decorative drag and drop in stuff for garments stroked to simple lines, from button holes to tassels, feathers, rips and tears, fraying, chords, sequins (how I also stroke in my sequins so they sparkle on the thread line like a string) studs, decorative woven trims, lace, procedural random mixes with simple start points. etc.
Most of these decorative textiles + trims can be bashed out quickly from procedural node graphs with the 3D or mixed in with texture capture, then stroked into the garment in a simple click. (Below) I take a straight line of sequins and attach then to a internal line as a spiral. I then randomise the normal angle tilt of each as it chases that object nurb. Creating the illusion of unique string of sequins. Simple to do - totally CG photoreal fakery.
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Yes please!
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ottoline, that would be so helpful
I'm struggling with tassels and feathers a lot
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Interesting, ok i will check if this will work in C4d, never tried before. Thanks! for the informations
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It's fantastic the time you've spent explaining the process, for me it's a bit complicated, since I don't master much Blender yet, I'm getting used to it... but it's very helpful to have more information to get it. I'm sure many other users will also find it very helpful!
The white cotton fabric is great!
Thank you very much!
Greetings.
Victor.0 -
Blender the latest version is pretty handy to have in the toolbox for fashion as it is now actually right up there (better) than some of the other CG apps I used to use for decades. Leaves Modo and Studio Max behind now when it comes to customizing your addon eco-stream for mesh modelling, and frankly now has a better UI working environment. The visual modes for development work are now very good, and in fashion you need to be able to customize some mesh prop tools to your workflow - which is so easy to do. A good software to use with MD/CLO3D.
https://cgcookie.com/articles/5-reasons-to-learn-blender-first
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I'm glad you told me that, since I've decided on Blender and not C4D, not because C4D is a bad program, but because it has a cost.
Blender is free but it takes little disk space and it doesn't need so much cpu to work well.
It's great that a free program has this great quality that you say.I also have to take into account that starting to learn a 3D program is not as easy and fast as a word processor. I don't want to make a mistake, but Blender I think will be a program that will be stronger and stronger in many workplaces.
Now I have to work hard to be able to use it to make more creative image and animation renderings than in CLO/MD. I don't think it is necessary to be a Blender guru, knowing the tools necessary to achieve my purpose will be enough.
Thanks!
Victor
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Cost is relative, Blender 2.82+ is relatively easy to learn, but it is also very broad as an app suite so you can go deeply into it's settings or just scratch the surface. By far the best part about Blender is an amazing variety of tutorials out there and the wider community. Creative shrimp is maybe one good easy to listen to enjoyable video resource, and so is the blender market, but equally you can go to the blender.org and look at the support community, there is also >>
Also be aware that if you are learning a software for a career you need to also look at where the demand is. So you may need to choose according to that driver.
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As always, thank you very much for your time and help.
Happy to choose such a good 3D application, now it's my turn to do my part to get it.
Thanks for the links, they are very good and helpful.
The truth is that Blender has an equal or superior power to the competition.
The new improved interface in 2.8, makes you want to get to work.What I don't like very much (from what I've seen in tutorials) is the system of nodes to create materials, I liked very much the more interactive system of Cinema 4D. Nodes are more powerful but for me they are a bit complicated, creating something simple can be easy, but creating a fabric is something else.
As for the materials I opened a new thread here:
https://support.clo3d.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360046582314-Fabric-library-and-new-fabric-design-Substance-Quixel-?page=1#community_comment_360011707073
In this thread, pabloquintana has been very kind and told me another thread that talks about PBR materials, in which you had indicated some websites to download procedural fabrics, has been very helpful... thanks to both of you.
I was asking if anyone uses the Quixel application (or Alchemist by Substance) to make their own fabrics, instead of using the node system, because these applications are somewhat simpler than doing it through nodes. I know it's not the same and they won't be as powerful, but it would be interesting to hear different opinions. If these applications do not have the necessary quality, then I will have to use the websites you gave in that thread to download already predefined fabrics.Thanks again.
Victor0 -
Thank you for such an extensive explanation and I apologize for taking so long to answer you, I also told you in one of my posts about fabric library.
I have clarified a lot about PBR materials, you are a great help, both for me and for those of us who read this thread. Thanks again for your time. Not everyone wants to share their knowledge. In fact, as I mentioned before I have a blog about knitting machines in Spanish, called knitstudium.com where I share some of my knowledge for free with people who also like fashion and knitwear. Thanks again.
I have listened to you completely, this week I just changed my Macbook Pro 2015 for a PC i7 Windows with an NVIDIA RTX 2060 graphics card.
Now the CLO simulation is very fluid, it's nice to handle the program, I'm super happy, because there were things that in the Mac version didn't work too well for me. As for Blender, now it simply flies, it is able to make renders is very little time and with an incredible quality, although I am still learning it, the other day I made my first lighting studio and I put a cloth that I downloaded for free and the result was tremendous. I still have many hours ahead of me, but now with this change I am much more excited.
As for the digitalization of fabrics, I find it quite accessible, when I have some time I would like to get on with it and do some tests. That's great.
Greetings. Victor.
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