Hello - I'm new to the tool and was wondering what the best way is to find clothing assets to use in the character creator. I purchased the essentials bundle, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of sci-fi style armor.

I couldn't find what I'm looking for on the marketplace or store - is there another resource for finding clothing items? Is 3DXchange supposed to be used for this, or is that only for when you want the entire model/prop imported? 

I've looked at other threads/guides, but I wanted to check with the experienced folks here in case there's a solution that doesn't require going outside of iClone/CC/3DX.

3DXChange allows you to uses non-clothing content from other software packages and bring it into iClone. Yes, technically 3DXChange can be used with the Replace Mesh function to create clothing variations but this process is very limited because the vertices count must remain the same. So as a rule 3DXchange is for props, morph props and non-standard characters.

The easiest thing to import via 3DXChange are props because typically they don't need conversion besides, possibly, scaling. So a prop in OBJ/MTL format, or 3DS format or even FBX format can be obtained from a number of sources (like shareCG or Renderosity) and then imported via 3DXchane without almost no work.

Clothing is more complicated because typically clothing is made for a specific character or character based on a specific product series. For example, DAZ Studio has a number of different characters based on their Genesis 1, Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 figures. However, these figures are not identical in shape to iClone figures and their T-Pose (default pose) is not identical. This means that without adjustment clothing from DAZ Studio, for example, will not fit iClone characters. On top of that clothing has to be imported using CC instead of 3DXChange because otherwise it will be static (will not change shape when the character moves). There was a tutorial on the forum showing how to do this with Blender. Basically once you have adjusted the clothing mesh to fit a iClone character you need to rig it on to a iClone bone structure, setup the weight maps (which can be copied from similar clothing) and then import via CC. In such a case CC will recognize it as clothing and take care of bending the clothing (according to the weight maps) when the clothing is used. This sounds complicated and can be for complex clothing but it isn't too difficult for more simple clothing (especially if you can get away with copying the weight maps from an existing pieces of clothing).

I'll note that there are exceptions to the above rules. For example, before CC has the option to create clothing, I generated a line of Real Wear clothing which was basically props or morph props. However, such clothing is very limited due to the fact that it can only cover a single body part because, as was mentioned earlier, it won't bend as the character bends. This is why you will note that most of the Real Wear clothing items are things like corsets, skirts, and bras.

Another way you can use non RL content is to use the third parties character with clothing already applied. For example, you can export a complete DAZ character with DAZ clothing already applied (as an FXB file) and import that into iClone via 3DXChange. However, in that case it will be a DAZ character in iClone (i.e. some iClone features many not work fully) and the clothing would be "baked" on the character (i.e. to swap clothing would require importing a completely new character as opposed to changing the character's clothing in iClone or CC). 




"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

I go to DAZ and find a character I like and then import the entire character with clothing via 3DXchange to iClone6.  You can find sales on DAZ all the time and if you join their PC club, they get even cheaper.  One thing to watch out for with sci fi stuff is that the character type is either Genesis 1, 2 or 3.  I bought a very cool character robot, but it was not a real character so a lot of the little pistons and such distorted and detached when I animated him.

I have not really needed any modern day characters, so CC is not of too much use to me at the moment.

Matthew

PC stats:
Intel Core i7-5930K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked to 3.9 GHz with Turbo Boost)

Windows 10
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, 8GB
Memory - 16GB Quad Channel  DDR4 at 2133MHz
DirectX - 12

256GB SSD 6Gb/s main HD + 4TB 6kRPM SATA 6Gb/s Storage