Character outgrows clothes, ripping them in half

daslicksta

Hello Daz Community,

I'm trying to animate a character growing tall and out of their clothes. I want it to look like the clothes split in two or more parts but I'm not sure how to do this.  I was planning on making morphs for the most part but dividing the model into pieces before hand is what I'm lost on. Is there a way in Daz or Blender to accomplish this?

Thank you for your help.

Spacious

What you are trying to accomplish is a very difficult task.  It can certainly be done with a combination of DAZ Studio and Blender, but you're going to need to learn a lot of techniques in both programs to pull it off.  You are very unlikely to find any quick simple answer.  I am absolutley not trying to discourage you, just know that it's a long road ahead.

richardandtracy

I have written a finite element stress modeller for Windows that has a 'separate facets' function which is exactly the function you need. If you can wait until tomorrow, I can write instructions and give the download address. It's software I wrote and used to model stress models for my living in 2004-2007, but it is aimed at engineering usage, and I have adapted it since for usage as a route to create models for DAZ Studio. The biggest problem is that Z is up, not Y. I will try to do this within 14 hours.

margrave

daslicksta said:

Hello Daz Community,

I'm trying to animate a character growing tall and out of their clothes. I want it to look like the clothes split in two or more parts but I'm not sure how to do this.  I was planning on making morphs for the most part but dividing the model into pieces before hand is what I'm lost on. Is there a way in Daz or Blender to accomplish this?

Thank you for your help.

You could certainly do this in Blender, but I don't think Daz Studio could do it. It's animation ability is, in general, fairly limited. You would need to take it into Blender, use the Rip Vertices or Knife tool to cut the mesh apart, use modifiers to re-join the cut pieces to remove shading issues, sculpt the clothing so it falls off realistically, and dynamically add opacity maps to the clothes to create the illusion of torn edges.

A far better option would be to do all the animation in Blender, then export each frame of your character as an OBJ and import it into Daz.

daslicksta

Thanks for the feedback guys! I have a lot of things to think about now.

3141592654

Daz Studio has options, certain outfits will work by turning the opacity off of parts of the outfit so the rest falls off or apart. If this is not an option, then using the geometry editor to basically make and delete a "seam" should allow the partitions to fall off as well. Orif you know how to send items to Hexagon and make changes and send it back (possibly needing to remap the surface) that can help also. OR, if you are ambitious, design you own clothes made with many texture zones in the right places so you can make the animation part happen with relative ease.

EDIT: oh yeah, there are certain products that add ripped edges or holes in clothing ... those could be useful also.

In short ... there is no easy way to do it ... but the geometry editor should become your friend.

Cenobite

Wow your in for a task, let me know if you get this done because sounds like you have to basically create many meshs then hide/show them in sequence, way too much drama for one outfit bad enough getting them to undress & dress without a ton of issues, morphs for every shape and movement needed even then you have scaling issues with textures warping or not sitting right, you'll aslo need something like substance painter so you can paint specific parts of the mesh for high detail.

Catherine3678ab

daslicksta said:

Hello Daz Community,

I'm trying to animate a character growing tall and out of their clothes. I want it to look like the clothes split in two or more parts but I'm not sure how to do this.  I was planning on making morphs for the most part but dividing the model into pieces before hand is what I'm lost on. Is there a way in Daz or Blender to accomplish this?

Thank you for your help.

When you are creating the clothing in Blender [for example], decide where you want the mesh to split and make those cuts. UVmap the clothing items.

Then bring the .obj into D/S and make it into clothing. Save it. Then make the desired morphs and save them too.

richardandtracy

I said I'd give a link & instructions:

Link to web page where dowload is on my website: http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/misc/modeller.html

Instructions:

1. Install modeller.
2. Open modeller & chose menu option File| Open
3. Select the obj file and press 'Open'
4. Select the 'Modelling Studio' radio button when asked what window to open.
5. The modeller will open in an orientation where 'Front' = DS Bottom, 'Right' = DS Left, 'Back' = DS Top, 'Top' = DS Front, and Z is Up.
6. Now choose 'Select Elements' by checking the 'E' selection method the image below. In this package engineering terminology is used, Elements = Facets, Nodes = Vertices.
7. Now drag selection rectangles around the elements you are interested in separating (eg the whole right half of the garment so there is a rip line down the back.). When selected, the elements will turn red. Once satisfied with the selection...
8. Chose menu option 'FE Model| Elements| Modify| Separate'. The separation routine will them start and you will see the word 'Complete' in the dialogue at the bottom of the program window when it's done. So the job is jobbed. Any texture mapping is retained, new co-incident vertices are created at the edge of where the facets met at the boundary of the selected facets, and a zero width crack has been introduced between facets that were once joined. 
9. Now to save the model, chose menu option 'File: Export'. Chose the file name AND YOU MUST ALSO CHOSE THE .OBJ EXPORT FILTER (it's the filter that is used to determine the extension & therefore export format regardless of what is typed for the name extension).
10. Carry on working on the model in the way you wish in Blender etc.

The modeller was a huge advance on the finite element modellers I had for my work in 2004, but has been overtaken since, but as it's a pet project of mine & my PC's AV software won't allow me to use Blender (the scripting capability is supposedly a potential hazard and I can't make Blender an approved exception in the AV software), so I just add occasional functions to make the transfer over of files from SolidWorks to DS somewhat easier. It is possible to do basic texture mapping, and modelling in the program, but Blender is, without question, quicker. In the program it's possible to change materials and change facet group, both of which can be useful. If you need to do all this, the 300 pages of reference material in 3 different Reference PDF's will help.

Please note, as the program was designed to match Finite Element element types, it can only cope with facets with 3, 4, 6 and 8 vertices. Blender has a nasty habit of making a few with vertices outside that range. The OBJ import routine sometimes breaks these into triangles, but more frequently the bug I've not been able to track down in that part makes it give up & die.

Regards,

Richard.