Designing a Shirt, Part 2

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

In this next lesson, you'll take the patterns you built in the first tutorial, and you'll apply Cloth to begin the process of turning the panels into a shirt.

Apply cloth to the shirt:

Open tutorial_2.max from your \tutorials\cloth folder.
This scene contains the Jester character and the shirt pattern with seams in place from the previous lesson. Now that all the seams are in place on the pattern, you will add the Cloth modifier to form the pieces into the shirt. The first task is to decide on the scale of the scene.

If you use the Measure utility, you can see that the Jester character is about 77 3ds Max units tall. If we set one unit to one inch, what would make him 77 inches (6 feet, 5 inches) tall, including the hat, which seems reasonable. Since we want to use 1 3ds Max unit=1 inch, that means 1 unit=2.54cm, so the cm/unit setting in Cloth will be set to 2.54; this is the default.
Select the Shirt object, go to the Modify panel, and apply the Cloth modifier to it.
Since we want cm/unit=2.54, there is no need to change this value, but please keep in mind that it is very important to set this value correctly before attempting a simulation.
Click the Object Properties button.
The Object Properties button on the Object rollout opens the Object Properties dialog, where you add objects to the simulation and assign them different properties.
In the left column of the Object Properties dialog, click the Shirt entry, and then choose the Cloth radio button on the right.
This sets the shirt to be a cloth object in the simulation.

Take note of all the Cloth Properties parameters that can be adjusted when an object is set to be cloth. You can use these parameters to get the fabric type you want, or you can use a preset.
With Shirt still highlighted in the left column, choose Cotton from the Presets drop-down list.
This sets all of Cloth Properties to simulate cotton.

If you were to simulate now, the shirt would simply fall to the floor because it's the only object in the simulation currently. You'll add an object for the cloth to collide and interact with.
On the Object Properties dialog, click the Add Objects button.
This opens a list of objects in the scene.
Click the Jester, and then click Add.

When you add objects to the simulation, it is the same thing as instancing the Cloth modifier to those objects. Each object that is part of the Cloth simulation will have a Cloth modifier assigned to it. Be aware of this as you set up your own simulations.
With Jester still highlighted in the left column, click the Collision Object radio button on the right near the bottom.
In the Collision Properties group, set the Offset parameter to 0.25, which will keep the cloth a quarter of a 3ds Max unit away from the body (the default of 1.0 is a little large for this scene).
Click OK to close the Object Properties dialog and set the parameters.
At this point, you have set the shirt to react like cloth, and the Jester's body to collide with it. You are now ready to convert the panels into a shirt. You do this with a local simulation.

Before you simulate sewing the garment together, you'll turn gravity off.
Scroll down to the Simulation Parameters rollout, and click the Gravity button so it is no longer highlighted and active.
In the Perspective viewport, zoom in a bit to get a closer look at the shirt, then still within the Cloth modifier, go to the Object rollout, and in the Simulation group, click Simulate Local. When the seams have pulled the shirt mostly together, press the ESC key to stop the simulation.

As you can see in the image above, the panels have pulled together and are draped over the Jester character. However, the seams have not come together to form a single garment and the green sewing springs are still visible. In order to get the seams to snap together completely, you will need to perform one more operation.
On the Simulation Parameters rollout, turn off Use Sewing Springs.
The green lines disappear.

The sewing springs are a way for the Garment Maker modifier to tell the Cloth modifier where seams should be. But sometimes, as in this case, the spring tension isn’t strong enough to pull the seams all the way together. Turning off the springs fixes this problem.
Turn Gravity back on, and then back on the Object rollout, click Simulate Local again.
Let the simulation run until you are satisfied with the fit, and then press the ESC key to stop it.
Now the shirt is complete. Next, you can animate the character and simulate the cloth over the animation. But before you animate your character, you're going to give the shirt a pocket to add some detail to it.

Add a pocket:

Now that the shirt is coming together, you'll add a pocket to it in order to give it some more detail. This section will introduce you to the idea of attaching one cloth object to another as well.

The following concepts are covered in this section:

Garment Maker creation
Creating and using groups
Assigning separate cloth properties
Load tutorial_3.max from your \tutorials\cloth folder.
This scene contains the Jester character and the shirt simulated from the previous lesson. If the scene opens with the panels apart and the garment looking stretched out, there's an easy fix. Occasionally you will see a scene file with the panels not together and the triangles distorted. To fix this, just turn on Use Sewing Springs, click Reset State, and then use Simulate Local to rebuild the shirt as it was at the end of the previous tutorial.

Now that the shirt is in place, you will add a pocket to it to make it look like a fancy T-shirt.

You'll start by creating a pocket to add in the same way you made the shirt pattern.
In the Top viewport, select both Shirt and Jester, and rotate them –90 degrees in the X axis so the model is facing up.
In the Top viewport, zoom into the front of the jester's body, then draw out a pocket shape with the line tool using Create panel > Shapes > Line. Make the pocket an appropriate size for the shirt and name the object Pocket. Be sure to go to the Vertex sub-object level and break all the vertices.

Spline pocket in the Top viewport
With the Pocket object selected, apply the Garment Maker modifier to it.
Go to Panels sub-object level of the Garment Maker modifier, and then move the pocket into place just in front of the shirt. You might want to rotate the pocket a bit to more closely align it with the chest portion of the shirt. When you're done, exit the sub-object level.

Pocket positioned at the Panels sub-object level

Now that the pocket is in place, you will need to add it to the simulation.
Select all three objects (press CTRL+A), and rotate the model 90 degrees in the X axis so it is vertical again.
Select the shirt, and then click Object Properties. On the Object Properties dialog, click Add Objects to open a list of objects in the scene. Click Pocket and then click OK. With Pocket still selected in the left column, click the Cloth radio button on the right. Click OK to close the Object Properties dialog.
Before attaching the pocket to the shirt, it's advisable to make the mesh densities of the two objects similar. Right now, the mesh density of the pocket is higher than the shirt, which can cause crumpling at simulation time.
Select the Pocket object, and then access the Garment Maker modifier in the stack. A warning appears: click Yes to dismiss it.
On the Object rollout, change the Density value so the mesh density of the pocket more closely matches that of the shirt. A value of 1.0 should work.
Next you'll attach the pocket to the shirt. You can do this at the Group sub-object level of the Cloth modifier.
Select the Pocket object, and then go to the Group sub-object level of its Cloth modifier. This level lets you select vertices. Select the vertices at all edges of the pocket except the top edge, as shown below.

Pocket vertex selection
Click the Make Group button and name the group PocketEdge.
You'll see a new group in the Group rollout list named “PocketEdge (unassigned).”
With this group still selected, click the Cloth button and pick the shirt by selecting it in the viewport or by pressing the H key and selecting it by name.
Now the Group should be named “PocketEdge (cloth to Shirt).” This lets you know that you have attached the group of vertices to the shirt object as a piece of cloth.
Return to the base level of the Cloth modifier, so you are no longer at the Group sub-object level. Make sure Gravity is not active on the Simulation Parameters rollout.
Go to the Object rollout, and in the Simulation group, click Simulate Local to conform the pocket to the shirt.
This should take only a few frames, and you should also realize that this process will also further refine the shirt's fit itself, so don't let the simulation run too long.

Pocket conformed to the shirt

As you have seen, adding extra detail to a piece of clothing is not a very difficult process. Attaching one cloth object to another is simply a matter of creating a group of vertices and choosing the other cloth object to attach it to. In the next lesson you will expand on this knowledge to create a collar and cuffs for the shirt, as well as assign different material properties to them.

Designing a Shirt, Part 3