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Alembic Import/Export MD to iClone FPS: 30 or 60? ... and more.

Posted By 4u2ges 3 Years Ago
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Alembic Import/Export MD to iClone FPS: 30 or 60? ... and more.

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4u2ges
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There... a while ago I had a disagreement with one forum user, who said it's not technically possible to import 60 fps simulation into iClone from Marvelous Designer and have a decent result.
Well, he was partially right.
Being fairly new to MD, I've done lots of testing recently and posted some of my work: https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost476819.aspx
Today I am saying that you CAN import 60fps simulation into iClone and even have it rendered with 60fps without mismatch between pose and garment (I still wish to hear what others with more experience say).
But at the same time, I strongly discourage doing so and recommend only simulate/render @30fps. Here is why:

All this time I was wondering why my simulations are coming a bit stiff and do not look as *natural* as they supposed to given selected materials and simulation settings.
Apparently, that is because I was kept pushing those 60 fps simulations - WRONG!
MD would give you a lousy simulation if you try to force it to simulate @60fps.

Here is a compassion test. I pulled my old project and simulated the skirt in MD with the SAME material and simulation property settings - 60 and 30 fps.
I specifically selected a material (cotton-stretched-velvet), which should bare an extremely dynamic simulation.

This is 60 FPS simulation in MD and 60 FPS render in iClone



I mean it looks OK, but that's about it.

And now 30 FPS simulation in MD and 30 FPS render in iClone



Totally different story. That is how stretched velvet should probably behave in real live given animation dynamics.

Does that mean MD is not ready for prime time 60 FPS simulation? Apparently so.

Next time I'd share share some tips for someone new to MD, Alembic import/export and simulating non-native MD garments (those are your ordinary CC cloths, which you'd like to simulated in MD)






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2 Years Ago by 4u2ges
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Also 60fps takes longer to simulate...right?

Here are my 30fps CC3.4 tests , rendered in UE4 :


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3 Years Ago by Bassline303
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Yes, absolutely. It takes twice as long and totally useless. Even when 30 fps simulations do not look right in iClone view-port, they always render perfectly.

I like how you arranged those beauties simulations/animation w00tWinkCool






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Thank you 4u2ges Smile , I like the new MD function to swap the cloth between different Characters.
30sec animations took about 20-30min to simulate with 10-20 particle sizes , thats really cool!
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3 Years Ago by Bassline303
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Oh, you can *hot* swap it between different characters? How?




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That is so cool! Thanks for sharing Smile




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Bassline303 (3/28/2021)
Also 60fps takes longer to simulate...right?

Here are my 30fps CC3.4 tests , rendered in UE4 :




Was the simulation done in MD and imported into UE4?? Or was it all simulated in UE4?





https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/dbdccbe9-2417-45d2-b87d-7b31.jpg

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Simulation is done in MD and imported as Alembic Smile
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OK, I promised some tips and then forgot about it. dummyyzz99 in this thread https://forum.reallusion.com/479990/Alembic-Cloth-Physics-test-in-Iclone?PageIndex=1 reminded me Smile
Feel free to add, or correct me if I am wrong.

* Thoroughly inspect your animation before exporting out of iClone. Make sure hands do NOT penetrate body at any point in time.
If simulated mesh gets caught between hands and a body, it would likely be ripped or behave abnormally.

* Even if there is no penetration occur, but hand are getting in contact with simulated garment, abnormal deformation might still occur,
specially if character has long nails. Fingers act like a razor when getting in contact with mesh. For this I came up with an idea to make special gloves.
They look like pot holders and should smooth down the contact with mesh.
Note: they would not help, if body penetration occur (see my first point).

Gloves are available for free at my store (there are 2 types - with and without fingers deformation).
Apply them to your character before exporting for MD simulation (hands mesh would be hidden), use smooth sculpting brush in CC to flatten sharp corners, spikes.

https://marketplace.reallusion.com/utility-gloves-for-marvelous-designer-simulations

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/be33eb7c-37b1-42d8-80a9-8922.jpg

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For a while I was willing to experiment with rigid objects simulation in MD.
Since MD is mainly intended for cloth design and simulations, setting up hardware simulations is almost impossible.
Everything is stretched and bent to some degree depending on material settings, mesh density...etc. If I miss something, I am willing to listen.

I mainly wanted to see if I can simulate collars/necklaces. Setting that up in iClone is a real pain.
So I pulled my old project, brushed it a little bit (to CC3+ standards) and tried to simulate this very old collar with heart (I think it's from IC5).

First, any hardware you try to simulated must be a solid object otherwise pieces would fly apart as soon as sim is started (weld collar in Blender)
Next, or well, is to find optimal material settings to at least bring stretching to minimum. This is the best I could come up with:

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/b911a912-f269-4e60-a958-c7c5.jpg

The rigid collar is actually got transformed into a necklace. Heart stayed more or less rigid, but collar ring became a flexible lace, which stretches and acts like a spring.


https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/d8ff61f0-64dd-4de8-bbf2-c861.jpg

I did simulate camisole and necklace simultaneously. There was a little problem exporting alembic out of MD.
Apparently you can only export alembic as a whole. So there was no way to separate camisole and necklace simulations.
So again, I had to take alembic file to Blender, recreate materials (luckily UVs were intact), extract OBJ and import it to iClone, so that I can apply combined alembic file.
Simulation came out fairly well, except at the end the lace kind of jammed.

I almost fell of the chair during simulation when the heart fell through the camisole at her back and then came right out...
Had to setup another camera and mirror billboard just to show that w00tBigGrin

So this is it...





Edited
2 Years Ago by 4u2ges



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