I've picked the simplest possible thing to make - that will still be
useful, hopefully. This tutorial will follow the making of
Della, a knee-length straight skirt to fit DAZ's Victoria 1 or 2. Don't worry if
you don't have Vicki, because the basic steps are good for any figure.
You could even make a kilt for one of the males. :-)
You won't be able to make a top for a female figure using this method.
The tube's morphs are just not versatile enough. Of course, this is what
the QuickSuits are for. The modelling steps
are a little more complex, all the same - but there are some pointers
in the QuickDress User Guide.
The first thing we need is a tailor's dummy - something to fit the clothes to.
In Poser, use Wavefront OBJ import to bring in the basic mesh for the figure you
want to make clothes for. Don't select the figure from the library as you
usually would (remember the Golden Rules?) In a standard Poser installation,
Vicki can be found at:
C:\Program Files\Curious Labs\Poser4\Runtime\Geometries\ZygotePeople\blMilWom.obj
If you're having trouble locating the mesh for some other figure, check out
The Poser File Disposition Guide for some
pointers on how to find it.
When the OBJ import dialogue comes up, deselect everything. This makes sure
that the imported mesh is the right size, and in the right place.
In this case, I wanted the skirt to fit nicely with other Poser clothes, so
I've also imported the OBJ for the polo shirt from DAZ's Victoria clothing pack 1.
That way I can tell where to put the waist. In this image you can also see the
magic tube from the Modelling Props Page. I've
spun the yTran dial to save Vicki's blushes. :-)
This tube will be all that is needed to make a simple skirt. For other clothing,
more tubes or other props might be needed, but these are the basic priciples.
Now adjust the tube's morph dials to fit it to Vicki's body. I start by
adjusting the "profile" dials, one by one, so that none of the base
figure shows through. Profile1 is opposite Vicki's right hip, and they are
numbered clockwise from there. You would normally make the settings symmetrical
in the X direction:
Profile1 = Profile17
Profile2 = Profile16
and so on. Move the camera round, and change the display properties of the
tube as required to get a good view of what you're doing.
If you make the figure invisible and select the top camera, you can check on the
smoothness of your profiling. On the left of this screenshot are the settings
I arrived at just panning the camera round; on the right, the profile has been
tweaked to make it more regular. You would normally do this by making the profile
bigger (i.e. setting the dials less positive) to avoid breakthrough.
Once you're reasonably happy with the profile, start adjusting the
"latitude" lines, starting with 1zTran, 1zScale and 1xScale. You
may prefer to adjust all the z dials first, while looking from the side, then
move on to x; or you may want to do each latitude line in its entirety.
Remember that you can also use all the overall translation, scaling and
rotation dials on the tube if necessary.
In the screenshot on the right, I've set the display properties of the tube
to "wireframe" so I can see how close I'm getting. You'll also want
to set it to smooth shaded from time to time, and pan the camera around, so
you can see if any bits of flesh have popped through. Ooh la-la!
Depending on the task, you will probably have to do quite a bit of skipping
between dials to optimise the shaping - but don't waste too much time on it.
Don't worry if you can't get a perfect smooth fit. The tube has quite large
polygons compared with a normal piece of clothing, so that the number of morphs
can be kept manageable; and you don't have complete control over where all the
vertices end up, as you would in a modelling application. Just get as close as
you can; we will tweak and smooth in the next step(s).
Next: All the Trimmings