All language subtitles for CustomMetahuman_6.3.mp4

As an alternative to retopology
in Marvelous Designer,

You can of course
use Blender to create your low-poly mesh.

Depending on how you went about
to create your clothes items,

This can be a matter of just a few seconds.

For example, if you use the multiresolution modifier for sculpting details.

Or we need to manually create a new topology,

if you used Dyntopo or other destructive
modeling and sculpting techniques

to arrive at your high poly mesh.

The first case is kind of self-explanatory.

Suppose you have followed the approach
of duplicating parts of the body

and then adding modifiers
like the shrinkwrap, multires or solidify modifiers.

With this approach, your original topology remains intact.

Which means we can simply duplicate
the mesh.

Let's name the original "lowpoly"
and the duplicate "highpoly".

Before just deleting all modifiers
on the low-poly version,

We need to be a bit careful.

The two meshes (the low-poly and high-poly one)

need to overlap to a very high degree
if we want to have clean bakes later.

So if I just disable
the multires modifier here,

the difference between the low and high poly vest

is too great and this will not work at all.

Let's reduce the multires subdivisions
step by step.

It looks like one subdivision
does the job to keep

the general shape of the vest,
while still getting rid of all the details.

Now let's apply the multires.

Same thing for the pants.

Let's duplicate the mesh and rename it
and then drop the subdivision

on the low-poly model to 1, and apply the modifier.

And there you have it!

A low poly and a high poly version of the outfit.

Now, what about the second case,

where you actually have a high resolution
mesh to begin with?

Here we need to go through the standard retopology workflow

that would apply to any sculpted object.

Shift-right-click on the mesh

where you would like to begin creating
polygons to position the cursor there.

Create a plane and delete three vertices.

Now select the one remaining vertex,
press Shift-S,

and select "Selection to Cursor",

and then activate snapping to face.

Now you can begin creating your geometry.
Extrude the vertices,

Join those two by pressing F,

then create a face by selecting all four
and pressing F again.

Also, if you go into X-ray mode,
it is easier to see your new mesh.

You can also add a mirror modifier
if you have a symmetrical cloth item.

Select the vest as the mirror object
and activate clipping.

Now continue extruding along the neck
to create a first edge loop,

and move the vertices to match
the high-poly geometry if necessary.

You can also create
different unconnected patches

and then join them together.
Sometimes this is easier than working your way down.

You can also use primitives in combination
with the shrinkwrap modifier

to create larger patches similar to what
we did with the belts in Chapter 5.3.

If you have cloth pieces where you know
you will want to use different materials later,

make sure your topology follows
the shape of the high poly mesh.

If some vertices end up inside the clothes
instead of staying on the surface,

just drop and apply a shrinkwrap modifier
to reposition all vertices on the surface of the mesh.

When you are done with the main retopology pass,
add a subdivision

and a shrinkwrap modifier again to increase
the resolution of your low poly model.

You can apply the mirror modifier
at this point.

Then make sure all border vertices align
nicely with the original.

For the pants, I use cylinders again
to create the legs and waist part of the pants,

and then join them together.

Well that's it.

We are done with retopology,
using only Blender's native functions.

There are also a couple of add-ons
that make this process a lot easier,

for example, Retopoflow, Speedretopo, or others.

You're welcome to check them out
and incorporate them in your workflow.

Also, I admit that these clothes
are rather simple

in terms of design.
So the retopology process is easy.

It can become more challenging

if you have a complex clothes pattern
with lots of small pieces.

But the general principles of retopology would apply in any case.

I would suggest to practice with simpler shapes first

and then increase the complexity
as you get more routine in the workflow.

And one final remark on the poly count
of the low poly clothes:

If it were a standalone model, we would be
free to choose any resolution we want.

But in this case, we are creating a layer
basically on top of the metahuman body,

which is expected to conform
to the deformations of the body.

If we drop our resolution too low,
the clothes would

obviously have too little geometry
to bend in the right way.

So for better results
of our rigged and skinned clothes,

the resolution should roughly match
the resolution of the body mesh.

This brings us to the end of the
retopology step of the pipeline.

Next, we will look into UV unwrapping,

and how to set up your meshes
and materials for texturing.