Designing a Shirt, Part 1

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials > Hair and Cloth Tutorials > Cloth > Designing a Shirt >

Create the shirt pattern:

Load tutorial_1.max from your \tutorials\cloth folder.
This scene contains a character for which you will make a shirt.
Select the character named Jester. In the Front viewport, rotate it –90 degrees on the X axis, so that the model faces up in the Top viewport.
Garment Maker requires that you create patterns in the Top viewport. Rotating the character will allow you to use it temporarily for fitting while creating the pattern. When you've finished creating the patterns, you will rotate it back.

Next you'll start to make a pattern for a shirt. First you'll create the panels that will make up the front and back of the shirt.
On the Create panel click Shapes > Line, and create a spline in the Top viewport that resembles the front of a shirt without sleeves. This will look something like a vest, as shown below.

Front of shirt in the Top viewport

Next you'll make the sleeve for the shirt. The sleeve is basically one long piece of fabric that wraps around the arm, with a seam at the bottom. The end of the sleeve that will attach to the shirt should be curved to better fit the shoulder area.
In the Top viewport, create a spline sleeve that fits the arm's length, and is about three to four times the arm's width.

Sleeve in the Top viewport
Copy the sleeve and front panel splines of the shirt so that you have a front and back plus two sleeves. Also, rotate the sleeve on the left so that it is properly oriented, as shown below.

Pattern panels copied and arranged

Next you'll combine all the pieces and set them up to be sewn together.
Use the Attach function to combine all the editable splines into one object and name it Pattern.
In order for Garment Maker to work, all of the panels that are created as part of a single piece of clothing must be part of the same object. That's why you attached all the splines. Next you'll break off different segments of the pattern so that these edges can be sewn together.
At the Vertex sub-object level, select all four corner vertices of both sleeves and then click Break.

Vertices selected for breaking

This will give you four separate splines to select and sew together instead of having only one spline. When you work with Garment Maker, you need to make sure that your shape contains separated splines to use as the seam edges.
Select the eight corner vertices on both the front and back pieces of the shirt, and click Break again.

Vertices selected for breaking

Now that the pattern is ready, you'll apply the Garment Maker modifier to make this 2D spline pattern into a 3D mesh.
With the Pattern spline selected, go to the Modify panel and apply the Garment Maker modifier.
When you apply Garment Maker to the closed splines it fills them in with an irregular triangular mesh that is designed for cloth deformation.

Fit the shirt to the character model:

Now that you're done with the preliminary creation and sizing for the pattern, you'll rotate the Jester back into standing position.

In the Front viewport select the Jester object and rotate it 90 degrees around the X axis so the figure is standing vertically once again.
The next step is to position the panels of the pattern around the character.
Select Pattern, go to the Panels sub-object level of the Garment Maker modifier, and select the panel that makes up the front of the shirt.
Use all four viewports to move the panel into place so it lines up well with the front of the character.
You will need to rotate the panel 90 degrees in the X axis so it is vertical like the character. You will also need to move it forward so it is in front of the character. Refer to the following illustration.

Positioning of the front shirt panel
Still at the Panels sub-object level, select the panel that makes up the back of the shirt. Move and rotate this panel into place.
As with the front of the shirt, you need to rotate the back 90 degrees in the X axis so it is vertical. You also need to rotate it 180 degrees in the Z axis so it faces outward, away from the jester’s body.
Move the sleeve panels into place above the arms.

Positioning of the back and arm shirt panels

You'll adjust a few parameters of the panels before adding the seams to the shirt's panels.
At the Panels sub-object level select one of the sleeve panels. In the Panels rollout's Deformation group choose the Curved radio button option. Set the Curvature value to –3.0 and choose the Y-Axis option.

This causes the sleeve panel to bend around the arm.
Using the Move and Rotate tools, reposition the panel to fit more closely around the arm.
If the sleeves are not wide enough to curve around the arm, go back to the Editable Spline level on the stack to make them a bit wider. To get Garment Maker to recognize this change, tweak the Density spinner up and down in the Garment Maker > Object rollout after editing the splines.
Repeat these steps to curve the other sleeve and position it to resemble the following illustration.

Sleeve panels with curvature

Make the shirt seams:

All the panels are in place, so next you'll make some seams for sewing them together. You can make seams at both the Curves and Seams sub-object levels. The Curves level is a good place to make seams quickly if you know exactly how they need to connect. However, this method can be a bit confusing at first. Therefore, you'll use the Seams level because it gives more visual feedback.

Go to the Seams sub-object level of the Garment Maker modifier. Select the edge on the front panel of the shirt above the left shoulder. It turns red to indicate it is selected.
Press and hold the Ctrl key, and then select the corresponding edge on the back panel of the shirt. On the Seams rollout click Create Seam.
If a dialog box comes up that reads, “Seamed segments not within tolerance,” increase the value for the Seam tolerance on the Seams rollout. You might also get a twisted seam. If this happens, click Reverse Seam on the Seams rollout.

Left: Twisted seam

Right: Correctly aligned seam

Most of the seams for clothing can be made as easily as this: Select two edges and then click Make Seam.

The exception to this is creating the seam between the sleeves and the arm holes. There are three seams involved here instead of two: the front half of the arm hole, the back half of the arm hole, and the sleeve edge itself. You must first make the arm holes on the front and the back of the shirt into one segment. You will do this by making a "MultiSegment" seam.
Select both segments for the arm hole on the front and the back of the shirt. It is important that you select the segments on the same side of the body on which you just made a shoulder seam. When both edges are selected, click Make MultiSegment on the Seams rollout.

Segments selected for making MultiSegment

Now, if you deselect and select either the back or front segment, both will be selected or deselected because Garment Maker now considers them to be one segment.
Select the MultiSegment you just made, and then select the sleeve edge. Click Create Seam to attach the sleeve.

Seam attaching sleeve to body
Create the seams for the rest of the segments on that side of the body. Don't forget the underside of the sleeve.

Seams for left side of body
Use the same method to create the seams for the other side of the body.

Remember to create the shoulder seam first and then make the MultiSegment seam. When dealing with MultiSegment seams, the order of creation is important. If you attempt to create seams in the wrong order, you might get a “Seamline topology is wrong” error, and the seams will not be created. When dealing with MultiSegment seams, create the minimum number of seams necessary to make the MultiSegment seam match the topology of the other piece to that you are going to connect. In this case, you have an arm seam that is open at the bottom, and a MultiSegment that is open at both the top and the bottom. By closing the top of this MultiSegment with a seam at the shoulder, you've created proper topology to make the MultiSegment seam.

To recap this first lesson, you created a pattern for a shirt from standard splines, applied Garment Maker, positioned them over the character and then created the seams that will be used to sew the panels together. In the next tutorial, you will see how to make the flat panels look more like a shirt.

Designing a Shirt, Part 2