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Creating your own helmet -- cloth or accessory?

Posted By Kelleytoons 7 Years Ago
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Kelleytoons
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Folks,
I'm no developer (nor do I ever intend to be one) but I can make my own props and other items and I want to make a helmet for use in CC.  My only question, from watching the tutorials is, should it be cloth or an accessory (so either ccCloth or ccAcc or iAcc, whichever it is now).

I get that an accessory just sits there and doesn't conform (and has no weight maps) but I have hats of both types in my CC and I don't particularly see a rhyme or reason as to why one is one way and one the other.  Accessories look *easier*, I think, but I might be mistaken.  Can any dev here guide me as to which I should be creating?



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Delerna
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I think its a choice based on how you want it.
Cloth has appearance editing ability in CC but if memory serves me correctly Accessories don't. So if I want to be able to texture it with the appearance editor then I make it as a cloth.
I generally use cloth also because as you mentioned it conforms which is also why I am saying "if memory serves me correctly" in regards to appearance editing with accessories.
I made one accessory but now I make everything as cloth or hair. I think cloth is easier but not by much

Just my opinion



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7 Years Ago by Delerna
Kelleytoons
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Thanks, that does help.  The only thing that worries me (mostly because I haven't tried it yet) is that I can easily see how to attach an accessory to the head bone in blender, but the whole cloth thing in blender seems a lot more convoluted (it looks easy in Max, but I SO hate to look at Max on my monitor nowadays -- the too tiny print is just killing my eyes).

Every Blender tutorial on cloth into CC I've seen posted here makes it seem like a very laborious process when in Max you apply one modifier and you're done but perhaps I'm missing something obvious.  (And part of it might just be I'm not a Blender expert).



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For a helmet (which is supposed to be solid) I would use an accessory. Main problem is usually the hair peeking through, so that requires some tweaking.

Accessories can be changed in the Appearance Editor by the way, but they may have to be prepared with some PBR material in advance. See the various objects that come with CC that are really accessories to an invisible character.

Depending on the kind of helmet you want, there are some in the market place that might suit you. I have also used converted Sketchup models. I'm always in favor of the easiest solution...Tongue


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Kelleytoons
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I agree 100% -- I was actually thinking Sketchup route (I think my time is MUCH better spent arranging the scenes, lighting, and telling stories rather than building assets).  I didn't see anything in the Marketplace that I liked, though.





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Lord Ashes
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I found one other factor. Cloth does not seem to support boning the item. So if you need to animate some part of the item, you will probably need to make it an accessory.

For example, I made some inline skates. Originally I was going to make them CCShoes (which is a variation of CCCloth) but then I decided I wanted to be able to rotate the wheels on the inline skates. Normal CCShoes, as far as I can tell, don't allow this, so I made the inline skates accessories which allowed me to include bones for rotating the wheels.

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Kelleytoons
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Thanks -- that's good to know.

So it seems the two factors are that cloth conforms automagically (so if the character is adjusted the item will adjust) and accessories can have moving parts.  Still wish I understand exactly how to do cloth from Blender but perhaps I'll play around.



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Kelleytoons (7/12/2017)Still wish I understand exactly how to do cloth from Blender but perhaps I'll play around.

Do you mean actually do Cloth in Blender or do you mean create clothing meshes in Blender to turn into CC Cloth in CC?
There are lots of tutorials on YouTube for doing both. Since this is a RL forum, I am going to assume you mean the second and give a quick outline of the process.
1. Use CC to export a Nude character as an FBX file. You can do this even if you don't have 3DXChange PIPELINE (this is an exception to the 3DXChange FBX Export rule which is typically not available in PRO). Alternatively you can download the FBX file from the RL Content Designer resources section.
2. Use Blender (or other program) to create your clothing mesh. You can use the exported FBX file as a reference to ensure that your clothing mesh will fit properly. Save the mesh as OBJ file.
3. Open Blender and import both the Nude Character FBX and the clothing mesh OBJ file.
4. Select the clothing mesh and while holding shift select the Armature (that was included as part of the Nude Character). Hold CTRL and press P. This opens the Parenting dialog. Select "WIth Empty Weight Groups". Do not use the Automatic Weight Groups - they don't work properly with CC.
5. The clothing mesh should not be found under the Armature branch. Open the Armature branch and select the CC_Body entry.
6. While holding shift select the clothing mesh.
7. Now switch from Object Mode to Weight Paint mode.
8. From the tools select Transfer Weights. I find that in my version of Bleneder, to make it work correctly, I need to change the Transfer Weight settings to "By Name". This copies the weight maps from the body to the clothing. This will be correct if you have tight fitting clothing. For other clothing (including long dresses) you will need to adjust the weight paint before the next step.
9. Export as FBX from Blender.
10. In CC use the menu to select Create | Cloth
11. In the dialog, provide the exported FBX file (step 9) and the Key file (which got generated along with the Nude Character export in step 1)
12. When the clothing layers dialog show up, there will be a lot of layers associated with the character that say "error" or similar. Ignore these. There should be, however, one layer which contains your clothing mesh with the default set to Cloth and Layer 1. Adjust the layer to the desired number. Layer 1 is the inner most layer, Layer 20 is the outer most layer. Somewhere on the RL website is a guide as to what each layer is supposed to be used for. However, you can always adjust the later in CC, so the choice is not a big deal. Okay the dialog.
13. You should see a character (usually a pale one with no texture) along with your clothing mesh.
14. Click on the clothing item and then on Conform in the top menu. This will generally hide small peek-through errors. If not you can use the dialog to slightly increase the item size and conform again.
15. Navigate to the desired content section (typically under the Custom tab) and then use the "+" key to save the item.
Congratulations, you have successfully made CC Cloth content!

This process may seem long and complicated at first but after you do it a couple times it becomes very simple. 

As for the creation of the clothing mesh in the first place there are some very good tutorials for using Blender Shrink Wrap feature which basically allows you to box in some clothing content and then shrink wrap it to the character,

"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
Kelleytoons
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Thanks, that's actually really helpful, even at this stage I'd pretty much decided to make it as an accessory (but who knows, perhaps someday I'll get around to doing the hair/clothing blender to CC thing -- life takes you into strange arenas).  At least now I feel I could do it.



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