Double sided clothes with clean UV maps

Loshirai

Hi. I have a question: how do you model double sided clothes? Do you start with single sided pollys? I have modelled a dress in Blender, single sided, and mapped it. The UVs seemed good. After that, I wanted thickness, so I added the solidify modifier, unwrapped again, and the UVs became a mess. After a few hours, I got decent results, but some of the UVs on the inside were still stretched. How do you make thick dresses? What software do you use and what pipeline? Could you help me please?

JimmyC_2009

You should maybe take a look at these meshes by Joe Quick on ShareCG.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/67360/favorite/5/3D-Model/Quicks-Quick-Resource-Meshes

Patience55 also has some good tutorials on ShareCG as well, and I believe that wilmap has as well. Have a search on ShareCG for tuts.

Clothing is usually single sided, and sometimes thickness is added in particular areas, like the ends of sleeves and collars, or they are turned in to give the impression of thickness. It is not a good idea generally to have double-sided clothing, as it doubles the poly count for a start.

Loshirai

So should I solidify only the outer polys...like the ones at sleeves? Should I map the new polygons in separate UV islands or link them with the main islands(no seam)?

Slosh

Loshirai said:

So should I solidify only the outer polys...like the ones at sleeves? Should I map the new polygons in separate UV islands or link them with the main islands(no seam)?

That would be the best idea, solidify the outermost. These could then share the same uv islands and would not be such a nightmare to map out, basically just extending those uvs out from the actual edge. Keep in mind how you are extending them as it would be easy to get them reversed, but it should work okay. If the purpose for wanting an inner layer is to have a different texture applied, such as a coat lining, you might want to assign a separate material zone for the "lining" and map that on it's own island.

Edit: I should also add that having the uvs "look a mess" doesn't necessarily mean they will look bad when textures are applied. Many figures, including DAZ's own figures like Genesis and V4, have uvs for several material zones that lay on the same uv map, basically covering each other up when viewed as a whole. It doesn't hurt anything, just make sure the inner and outer have different material zones assigned. You can then have each zone reference the same texture or completely different textures, such as the coat lining example.

SickleYield

It's not usually a good choice to use Solidify in Blender for finishing clothes. It's better to model your base shape, then select an outer ring at the end of a sleeve or hem, extrude, and alt+s or s to scale it inward. Then extrude again and scale slightly to create the full coved edge. You will have normals issues with fully solid areas connected to the outside of a single-layer area.

This way you can just extend your existing seams through the coved area and not suffer major disruption of the UV (pin the central areas of existing islands and use live unwrap to just add the finished areas). I'd only put it on a separate island if you really need a "full" skirt liner (and that's almost never going to be a good idea because it will absolutely fight with collision and smoothing).