MakeClothes [Mask, Texture & Thumbnail]

[CHEED]

Hi,

I have created some clothes using makeclothes and am pretty happy with the results but I am not sure how to go about creating masks, textures and thumbnails for my clothes so that they can appear as they do in MH.

I know that I have to save these files in the same folder as my mhclo files. For the thumbnails, I tried to save a grab screen of the model in the clothes and save it in the mhclo folder as a png but MH can't "recognize" the thumb. I see that the file extension for thumbnails is .thumb. How do I create the thumbnails? Here is an image of the 'sweater' I created:

MH1.0.2 screengrab

And please find below screen shots of my attempt to create Masks:

I would like to create and use textures/maps for "diffuse", "normals", "displacements" for the MH models. I can create bump maps in the Gimp but when it comes to incorporating them in MH, I am not sure. Do I use the exported UV layout from blender (as shown above) as a basis for creating these textures in other photo manipulation software such as the Gimp or can that be done directly in blender then "exported" via the Make Clothes button?

A previous tutorial on creating a skirt using makes stated thus:

I am not sure if this is the right place to post this; (maybe Blender Artist website) but here goes . Apologies in advance.

[duststorm]

I am not sure how to go about creating masks

We no longer use mask textures as was the case in Alpha 7, it was not very efficient and did not work all that well.

Instead you add the vertices of the basemesh and clothes helpers that are hidden by the clothes to the "delete" vertex group in blender, when using MakeClothes.

How do I create the thumbnails?

Take any screenshot or render you like, crop and resize it to 128x128 pixels size (thus it should be a square image), save it as .png, then rename it to .thumb
(hint: an image without wireframe in the background might look better as icon. The default clothes thumbnails in MakeHuman all have a transparent background, which is even better)

I would like to create and use textures/maps for "diffuse", "normals", "displacements" for the MH models. I can create bump maps in the Gimp but when it comes to incorporating them in MH, I am not sure.

I'm not sure to what extent MakeClothes exports the material you created in Blender, but it is possible that if you give your clothes in Blender a material with a bump map, that MakeClothes exports it.
Otherwise, just open up a .mhmat file from existing mh clothes in a text editor, it's not too hard to edit manually to create your own material.
Alternatively, in MakeHuman, go to Settings > Plugins tab, and enable the Material Editor plugin. It's a development tool, but should get you set at creating your own materials pretty quickly. It's WYSIWYG, so you get an immediate preview, just make sure to save the material in the same folder as your clothes.

Do I use the exported UV layout from blender (as shown above) as a basis for creating these textures in other photo manipulation software such as the Gimp or can that be done directly in blender then "exported" via the Make Clothes button?

A bit of both, I guess. All your textures (diffuse, bump, normal, specular, ...) should share the same UV map (there is only one supported).
You can use Blender's baking tools to generate normal maps (comparing a high resolution and a low resolution mesh, for example, or baking sculpted details to a normal map), but you could also use Gimp, potentially with normalmap plugins, or things like normalbump, among with other techniques to create all the required texture maps.
Note that usefulness of bump, normal, ... features depends on the shader selected in MakeHuman. They are not finished yet completely, and there's no all-in-one uber shader yet either, so not all features will be available yet.

[CHEED]

We no longer use mask textures as was the case in Alpha 7, it was not very efficient and did not work all that well.
Instead you add the vertices of the basemesh and clothes helpers that are hidden by the clothes to the "delete" vertex group in blender, when using MakeClothes.

That is even better. I have been using the "delete" vertex option for single-layer clothes but was not sure if that was the best way of doing it - especially when comparing it to A7 texturing system.

Take any screenshot or render you like, crop and resize it to 128x128 pixels size (thus it should be a square image), save it as .png, then rename it to .thumb(hint: an image without wireframe in the background might look better as icon. The default clothes thumbnails in MakeHuman all have a transparent background, which is even better)

I think I had tried to rename an image to .thumb. But will give it a go again. I definitely didn't reduce the image size; it was way too larger than 128x128. Yes, the wireframe background looks ugly .

I'm not sure to what extent MakeClothes exports the material you created in Blender, but it is possible that if you give your clothes in Blender a material with a bump map, that MakeClothes exports it.
Otherwise, just open up a .mhmat file from existing mh clothes in a text editor, it's not too hard to edit manually to create your own material.
Alternatively, in MakeHuman, go to Settings > Plugins tab, and enable the Material Editor plugin. It's a development tool, but should get you set at creating your own materials pretty quickly. It's WYSIWYG, so you get an immediate preview, just make sure to save the material in the same folder as your clothes.

That Material Editor plugin in MH sounds good. Will try it. I am aware that Makeclothes doesn't export multiple materials. But then from what you have said it seems it would export multiple textures?

A bit of both, I guess. All your textures (diffuse, bump, normal, specular, ...) should share the same UV map (there is only one supported).
You can use Blender's baking tools to generate normal maps (comparing a high resolution and a low resolution mesh, for example, or baking sculpted details to a normal map), but you could also use Gimp, potentially with normalmap plugins, or things like normalbump, among with other techniques to create all the required texture maps.
Note that usefulness of bump, normal, ... features depends on the shader selected in MakeHuman. They are not finished yet completely, and there's no all-in-one uber shader yet either, so not all features will be available yet.

Time to get my hands 'dirty'...never really used Blender's baking tools to generate maps...only simulations.
Thanks for the help/suggestions and that tip on the usefulness of shaders too.