Method study: Adjusting digital fashion for Unreal Engine usage.
During my specialization in digital fashion, I focussed on researching how to make clothing for video games more realistic using the right pattern editing method and digital craftsmanship. I used Unreal Engine as the program to build my very first game prototype in.
Through the process, I noticed that Unreal Engine handles seams in digital clothes differently than the program I designed them in: CLO3D. I had to find a method to exaggerate the seaming more so they would be visible. This project is a step by step documentation of what was needed to achieve this.
Garments are fitted onto the new avatar, ready for export. Avatar created in Daz3D.
Avatar and outfit are exported as FBX.
Using Mixamo, the avatar and clothing are rigged for animation.
By rigging the clothes onto the avatar together, computing power is saved by not having to rig the clothes apart from the avatars for each animation.
Testing the first animation in Unreal Engine to see if it was imported correctly.
Adding the other animations and completing the timeline. The avatar is now able to go from idle to walking and running with smooth transitions in between.
Textures are created using the node basic system. The texture maps are created from a real-life mushroom fabric swatch, turned into digital maps using photography.
Applying the textures to each part of the clothes and avatar.
Problem: The seams are not visible enough. I had to find a solution to make them more visible.
The solution for making the seams more visible is adding large curvatures along the edges. This is done using the off-set function and adding 3 different curve angles: 90, 100 and 120. This gave the best result.
Comparison CLO3D view and Unreal Engine view. Seams are a lot more visible now.
The seaming method close-up images of the hole dress. It needs to be very exaggerated in CLO but that is needed to make it look visible in Unreal Engine.
The seaming method used on the other outfits. This character will not be playable but just an NPC.
The seaming method used on the other outfits. This character will not be playable but just an NPC.
Final testing of the playable character, the seaming is a lot more visible now and it makes the design features pop more.
Detailed overview of the steps of this process.
Final video made using Unreal Engine life rendering. It shows the avatars, the environment and a bit of the gameplay.