Export to Blender with Animation and Texture ?
Is anyone able to explain if there is a way to export an animated garment (plus avatar) from CLO into Blender 2.81 in such a way that both the animation and the textures are preserved?
When I export to an FBX file, the textures import into Blender correctly but the animation is lost.
If I export to Alembic Ogawa format the animation imports to Blender correctly, however all of the texture information is lost.
I have tried importing both formats into Blender and then either copying the animation or the texture from one mesh to the other but that doesn't seem to work either.
If I try to copy the Motion Sequence from the Alembic version onto the FBX version nothing happens and if I try to add the materials from the FBX version to the animated Alembic mesh the textures don't align properly.
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Yes, point cache 2 for garments works very well.
I'll make a tutorial because this come up a bit, but basically you need to import the obj into Blender (point cache saves an obj along with the point cache), making sure you keep vertex order when you import, then apply a mesh cache modifier to the obj.
I haven't tried exporting avatars as well in this way, but I'll give it a go.
Adam1 -
Many thanks for the help.
However it still doesn.t seem to work. I have exported the garment as a point cache 2 and I get a .pc2 file plus a zipfile that contains an obj an mtl and the textures.
I can import the obj file fine and all the textures are import too, but when I try and add the Mesh Cache modifier I get a Vertex Count Mismatch error. I've tried various different settings for the export (eg single/multiple objects welded/unwelded) but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I also have Keep Vertex Order set.
The avatar doesn't seem to save at all by the way, but that's not such as issue as there are other ways to get that into Blender but the garment is a real problem.
Best Regards,
Dino
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Hi Dino,
give me a shout if that doesn't work. I'll do a little video later anyway.
Adam1 -
Thanks Adam,
I have Keep Vert Order set though and I'm still getting the same thing.
Best Regards,
Dino
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OK, vid coming up. Prob tomorrow.
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Just spotted you've got MDD format in the modifier panel. You need to pick PC2.
I just tried it on mine and it's still all working as it should so I don't think updates have broken anything since I last did it.
Adam
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Hi, everybody,
It would be great if you could do a tutorial on how to export correctly to Blender, especially for users with little knowledge!
I have to try it out to see if I can get it. I'm interested in the animation, but also the seamlines, topstitches and buttonholes that they look right.
Thank you very much!
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Hi Adam.
When I select PC2 in the modifier panel it all works.
That's perfect.
Many Thanks for your help.
P.S. I need to do a similar thing to get the rigged avatar and garment into Unreal Engine 4 for real time simulation, however I will raise that as a separate thread.
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Ottoline had a great technical explanation here https://support.clo3d.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360044259713/comments/360011672893 about the stitching which I don't think can be bettered but I will definitely do a basic animation export to Blender video.
Dino, I'm pleased it worked for you :)
I'm not really an expert in Unreal Engine but I guess I should look at it in more depth as the new tech demo for the UE5 demo looked fantastic. Although the scarf flapping in the wind looked a bit feeble compared to Clo and the like, it looks like it may have some basic fabric simulation too, which could add some life to a pre-creased etc garment. Should be interesting to get some more details.Adam
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Hello again, everyone,
Thank you very much for your time.
I've done what you said. I've got it to care properly but when I give the PLAY doesn't work the animation.
Seeing the screen of mdinoulis I have managed to add the PC2 in Add Modifier/Mesh Cache, but the animation still doesn't work.
When exporting in CLO in Point Cache 2, a file called .mtl is also generated, something has to be done with it?What am I doing wrong? Could you help me, please?
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Hello Knitstudium :) (do you have a name?)
I've just made a rough video that should help which is uploading now. I'll make a more comprehensive one with narration etc explaining the whole process.
Adam0 -
OK, here's the video. I've sped up/cutout all the tedious parts
https://youtu.be/HYDKQCRUWwgGive me a shout if it doesn't make sense.
Adam
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Hello Adam, I'm sorry I didn't sign the messages, my name is Victor, I live in the north of Spain, and the "knitstudium" is because I have a blog about knitting machines and fashion in Spanish at knitstudium.com
I'm a pattern maker and a dressmaker... and I want to enter the world of digital fashion display.
I'm learning CLO, but Blender will give me the possibility to make more creative renders and images.WOW What a great video!
Thanks a lot! It's so cool!
As soon as I can, I'm going to put it into practice! Fantastic!!!
Victor
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Hello Victor!
I like the north of Spain, I think it has a similar feel to Cornwall where I am based.
I'm going to try and make some more Clo/Blender videos as they both go really well together and I find the rendering in Blender is more versatile and faster (although Clo is both easy to set up and the quality can be great).
Nice website by the way :)Adam
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Hello Adam,
Of course, it'll be great if you make some more videos.
By the way, when you have time, could you please tell me:Is it possible to bring the CLO avatar along with everything else?
I also have a mac, a Macbook Pro 2015, the mac is super slow when I make animations and renders, lowering the simulation to 5 is almost impossible to work with. What model of mac do you use? I was thinking of switching to a Windows PC with an NVIDIA card... It's possible that my mac is a little out of speed!I've seen your instagram and the virtual clothes it makes are great. I hope I can get to that level soon. I live in the Basque Country in a city called Bilbao, we are almost opposite.
Greetings! Victor
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Hi Adam,
Yes, I agree UE5 looks great, but just having a scarf waving in the wind is a bit weak. That's really what I'm looking into in my research at the London College of Fashion actually. How to make digital clothing animation and rendering more realistic and more usable within a fashion context rather than just games.
If you are able to help with the Blender side then if I can get the Blender model in the right format hopefully it will work when importing into UE4. In order to be able to import the clothed avatar into UE4 the avatar garment combination needs to be modelled as a single skeletal mesh with the clothing contained within the rigged mesh but in a separate material slot. That's the bit I'm struggling with in Blender.
Using the PC2 method you've described creates two separate animations, the Avatar which is fully rigged and on its own imports correctly into UE4 and the garment which is a sequence of point clouds I presume. I've tried importing the garment as an OBJ and then attaching it to the Armature of the avatar using Automatic Weights and it seems to then animate in Blender but it's not actually part of the same mesh as the avatar, which I think is where the problem is. I tried parenting the garment mesh to the avatar mesh but this didn't seem to work either. If you are able to help in this area then that would really help.
Best Regards,
Dino
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Hi, Adam,
I have made a quick garment and exported it as you have shown in the video and it seems to work perfectly.
I can't believe it, I'm so happy after putting so much effort into it.
Thank you very much again for your help!
Greetings!
Victor0 -
Hi Victor,
That's great! I'm going to look at avatar export this week (I usually have just the clothes moving around in Blender) so I'll see how it goes and post some results when I have them.
I have the same Mac as you and it is definitely slow with simulations and rendering without a decent GPU. But it's my work computer and I didn't have to pay for it so I'm not complaining too much. I like the way a Mac does things. I used a PC for 10 years in my last couple of jobs doing archviz and coming home to my old Mac felt like putting my slippers on after a long day. However, I don't use Clo to make my money (I am a technician at a university so it is something I am using to teach to students) but if I was, I would 100% buy a PC with an Nvidia graphics card.
Using a slower computer does make you think about trying to be efficient (don't jump straight in shrinking the particle distance etc) but I do wish Apple thought about working in 3D a bit more.
Adam0 -
Hi Dino,
Well, it's not really my area of expertise (Unreal that is) but I'm wondering if there's some way you could bake an animated displacement map onto the avatar? Or something like corrective shapes based on bone angles. I don't even know whether that's possible, so a bit of a guess that one. It might be worth doing some experiments. I will post any progress here if I get some good results. It will be cool to see if you get anything working as well or even post stuff that you've tried but doesn't work.
I think if you needed the fabric to simulate based on forces from Unreal, you would need a separate mesh for the fabric to the avatar anyway so the fabric had something to be flattened against/restricted by. Not sure how to get those micro wrinkles and stuff moving but I did see a paper about AI fabric simulation which looked pretty good (I'll try and find it).Adam
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I don't know if this will spark a few ideas.
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Hello again, Adam,
I'm also happy to just export the garment to Blender, and your video is fantastic for it. In very specific cases I might also need to take the avatar to Blender and if you manage to find out, it would be great if you could share it around here. Thanks again for your interest.
I've had a mac for 12 years now and I've been very happy with them, they've put up with a lot of hard work and have lasted me many years. Unfortunately, Apple should include NVIDIA on all their computers, I don't understand this oversight for 3D graphics on macs. What I do know for sure is that I will have to change my platform next time to Windows + NVIDIA RTX. Anyway, it's just a matter of adapting in a week...
Greetings and see you soon here!
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Hi Adam,
For the import into Unreal the garment and avatar have to be part of the same single rigged mesh with the garment on a separate material slot.
I previously tried parenting the garment mesh to the avatar mesh but this didn't work. I'm going to try merging the two meshes CTRL J to see if that works, Although I don't know if I'll then need to re-rig the whole model. I'll let you know how it works out when I get a chance to try it out.
Best Regards,
Dino
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Hi, Adam,
Sorry to bother you!
I tried to export another new animation to Blender through Point Cache 2, and it worked very well but I have a doubt:
I also want to do it "without animating the avatar", that is, only static image without movement, but when I do it with PC2, CLO tells me that there is no animation...
So I deduce that PC2 only works when there is an animation to export, BUT if I only want static image to export...
How should I export it to Blender with its corresponding seams and textures?If you can answer me, thanks in advance!
Thank you. Victor.
By the way, I switched to a Windows PC with an NVIDIA RTX graphics card and the change was huge... now CLO and Blender fly!
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Hello everybody!!!
I also created this thread about how to render a part of the animation in CLO but nobody answered me...
Can anyone help me? Thank you!
Victor0 -
Hey everyone,
Charlie here. I was hoping you could help with preserving puckering and stitch textures when exporting an animated garment through Point Cache 2? We are successfully exporting the animated garments (All be it out of sync with the avatar in blender - maybe a frame rate conversion error) but the stitch and puckering textures are nowhere to be found?
Any help here would be great!!
Thanks
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Does anyone know how to bake that animation so that when i send it to get rendered the animation is still there? When i try upload it to sheepit the scene renders but not the animation that i imported
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falmouth Sorry for jumping after one year but I was trying to follow your tutorial and the instructions you gave here and for some reason when I am import the OBJ into Blender it's empty.
Do you know why?
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