(Initially posted this to another subforum, but realized this was probably better. My initial post here doesn't seem to have worked, so resubmitting.)
Background context: I'm working on doing NPR-style 3d comics in Blender and am using MakeHuman to generate these characters. I am also largely building custom outfits for characters.
Problem: MakeClothes allows me to easily make clothes which will fit MakeHuman models, which is good. However, I will often use outfits with procedural textures and multiple materials in one model which I will want to put on multiple characters (background characters, etc.). I may also make outfits specifically for characters and then change the character's body somewhat later, which also requires a clothing refit.
Currently, I see a few main ways of addressing this:
1. Make the clothes and then bake the textures into them. Export to MakeHuman, put them on my character, reimport.
Pros:
* Clothes are easy to fit to individual models
* Easy to re-import when I put them on characters in MakeHuman.
Cons:
* Clothing has to be made to MakeClothes standards ("Maximum pole count" is the current bane of my existence)
* More labor-intensive to change my mind about coloring later.
2. Same as option 1, except that I don't bake the textures and just re-apply them to the character on import.
Pros:
* Clothes are easy to fit to individual models
* I retain the flexibility of procedural textures.
Cons:
* If I have multiple materials on a mesh, I have to re-select and apply them
* Clothing has to be made to MakeClothes standards
* Clothing looks kind of terrible in MakeHuman (NBD, as I'm mostly using it for modeling)
3. I make the clothes to fit the model directly in Blender and never put them into MakeHuman at all.
Pros:
* I get to keep procedural textures
* No messing about with max poles; generally less model cleanup involved
Cons:
* Have to individually fit the outfit to each model or when changing a model
* No automatic rigging/weighting like MakeClothes takes care of
Is anyone doing something similar to this? What workflow do you find is most effective for you, and are there any strategies I'm missing?
What would be really ideal would be a way to run the logic of MakeClothes in order to fit the clothes to a MakeHuman-exported model straight in Blender, but I'm not aware of any feature which will let me do this.