Introduction
This is not a start to finish tutorial to make one particular cloth, instead more of a detailed workflow guide to complement whatever cloth CC tuts you're learning from right now.
If you have the basics on Blender, Marvelous Designer and 3D, it will help you a lot to comprehend many things. If you don't, I wish you good luck. Hopefully this guide shines more light on your path.
The required softwares for a making cloth CC:
Note of cautions:
Table of Contents
1. Create your cloth in Marvelous Designer (MD)
1.1 Download the SIMS 4 avatars for MD
1.2 Design your cloth
1.3 Retopologize your cloth mesh
1.4 Prepare your uv-map before exporting your cloth
1.5 Export both low poly and high poly mesh as .OBJ files and import it to Blender
2. Work on Blender
2.1. Choose your reference cloth from S4S, export it and append it to blender
2.2 Close all holes of your cloth
2.3 Transfer weight paint
2.4 Do vertex paint
2.5 Data Transfer uv_1 from the reference cloth to yours
2.6 Working on uv_0
2.7 Split Mesh don't just mark sharp
2.8 Texturing
2.9 Testing your diffuse map and normal map in Blender
2.10 Join the nude mesh from EA to Blender
2.11 Testing
2.12 Assign mesh geometry group to your cloth
2.13. Import your cloth to S4S
2.14 Creating LOD 1 2 3
1. Create your cloth in Marvelous Designer (MD)
MD allows you to make a 3D cloth as if you were sewing a real one.
Tutorial on how to use MD:MD official Youtube Channel. Different version of MD usually has changes on the UI so choose the most current tutorials if you can.
To create a cloth you can do it on any 3D software though, Blender, Zbrush, MD, etc.
1.1 Download the SIMS 4 avatars for MD
Avatars are the mannequins to fit your cloth creation. Don't use MD default avatar. It won't fit to SIMS4 character. Download SIMS4 avatar here.
1.2 Design your cloth
You should start by making the easiest cloth. The top.
Tips: Having symmetrical mesh will make the control of your mesh easier and more predictable for later deformation and animation.
Note: When you create a pants, you need adjust the diameter of the bottom leg according to the size of your pants reference. If it's too small it may clip with shoes. TS4 developers already have certain size to ensure the pants diameter fit the shoes.
MD Tips:
1.3 Retopologize your cloth mesh
Most tutorial out there skip this step. So you'll end up with a very high poly and polygons with wrong edge flows that ain't good for animation. But you can still use it for personal use though. It just takes more memory and calculation power and maybe some animation glitches.
If you want to do it the better way, retopologize your cloth. I prefer to do it on Blender 3.0 above, then I export it as obj to work further on Blender 2.79.
The reason to work on Blender 3.0 above, because there are add ons on higher version Blender making retopology easier.
The reason to export it as obj, because TS4 only work with Blender 2.79b and some lower version. It can't open the files from higher version of Blender. But it can import obj.
You can do retopology on MD too if you will.
What is retopology?
Reconstructing your cloth mesh to become low poly.
Why retopologize?
The topology created on MD is definitely high poly / high resolution. It's not good for the game. Higher poly means more calculation and cost the game engine. Thus, you retopologize - rearrange, reduce the number of polygons and recreate the edge flows of your mesh.
Note: Retopology is a deep topic, thus you need to learn more about it from other resources.
Some tutorials:
We retopologize in quads. Rectangle shape. The reason we human use quads, because it's easier to control and manage compare to tris (triangle).
Although in game, quads will be triangulated - turned to triangles or threes. Because a three only has 3 points, thus will always create a 2D triangle flat surface. It's easier to calculate for the engine. While a quads could potentially form a 3D shape, thus harder to calculate.
You can retopologize on MD or Blender. If you did it on Blender, you need to recreate again your uv map.
From retopologizing you'll have a low poly mesh. But keep and export also the high poly. You can use the high poly for texturing later - baking a diffuse and normal map, so you can have the creases and folds of your cloth.
I usually retopoligize on Blender 3.0 then I export the result to .Obj. So I can import it to Blender 2.79. Because Blender 2.79 can't open the Blender file from higher version.
Tips:
If you do retopology on Blender there are useful add on that you should install or activate:
Topology techniques
These are some topology techniques I've found on the internet and am using it.
1.4 Prepare your uv-map before exporting your cloth
Switch to uv editor
1) RMB-click in the window, choose Set uv from pattern alignment
2) then Fit uv to unified (0-1)
1.5 Export both low poly and high poly mesh as .OBJ files and import it to Blender
Why you need low and high poly mesh?
So you can bake details from high poly mesh to low poly.
If you retopologized on MD, export the low poly and also the high poly as .obj. Then import both to Blender.
If you retopologized on Blender, then just export the high poly from MD, the low poly from Blender and import both to Blender 2.79b.
When you export, a pop up window will appear. This is the export settings.
Thick = export include thickness of the garment. You'll have two layers of a surface. (Not necessary)
Thin = export without thickness.
2. Work on Blender
I assume now you have the low poly mesh of your cloth in blender. Either from MD or from Blender. Because this is the mesh that you're going to work on.
2.1. Choose your reference cloth from S4S, export it and append it to blender
You get your reference by exporting one from S4S
Why use a reference?
To transfer its:
How to choose a reference?
The better its shape looks like yours, the better. Pay attention on the thickness and length, for example:
Tips:
Do:
What is a clone?
A clone is different from a reference. A clone is a cloth that are going to be replaced through importing your cloth to S4S. A reference is a cloth you export from S4S to get its weight and uv_1.
What is LOD 0, LOD 1, LOD 3?
The higher the number the lower the number of polygons or detail of the mesh. EA use different quality of meshes, depending on the distance of your view in the game. The closer, the higher quality mesh it uses, vice versa.
What is uv_0 and uv_1?
As a beginner you learned that uv_map is for texturing - in Sims4 they name it, uv_0.
But a uv_map can also be used for other things, such as for mesh morphing in the game, EA named it, uv_1. It utilizes a map called a deformation map or dmap. And vertex paint is used to dictate what variation of dmap the area will morph according to.
However, there is a limit to how far the dmap can push the geometry out or inward and how mobile(up and down) it can be, which posed a problem with breasts to ts4 developers (and eyes, nose, mouth ), so they decided to handle it through bones.
The bones responsible for morphing are always called like b__CAS_(the area of the face or the body)__. Any other bone is responsible for the movements only.
Every SIMS 4 cloth has uv_0 and uv_1 map. You may use a third or fourth uv_map for texturing and baking purposes. But remeber those extras must be removed before importing to S4S. Else they will create deformation problem.
2.2 Close all holes of your cloth
For example the arms, skirt, neck, etc.
2.3 Transfer weight paint
Basically, weight paint is a system to assign a value based on a cold-hot color system to each vertex. Blue is the lowest, red, the highest.
In SIMS 4 it's used to determine the deformation level of certain part of the mesh in accordance to the bone movement.
Why we transfer weight paint from the reference?
So we don't have to weigh paint ourselves. After the transfer you may need to adjust it / paint it by yourself a little bit. The more suitable your reference is, the less fix is needed.
Here's the color guide.
Do:
Clean: to remove from each vertex, vertex groups that have value less than the set value.
Limit total: to limit the max number of vertex groups that a vertex can have. For example after the transfer, a vertex could have 10 vertex groups, after hitting the "Limit Total" button, the number will be reduced.
How to check that the weight transfer has happened?
One way to check it is by going to Vertex Tab. Look at the vertex groups. Before, it's empty, after the transfer you'll see the list of vertex groups.
In the weight paint mode, if you clicked on some of the bones, you'll see your cloth that's in blue, some of them will have some yellow-red color.
How to test the weigh paint result
I usually use the normal walk and creepy walk. The creepy walk I used to see how the colar looks like when shrugging.
Note: You may one day wondering like I did, why there are bones sitting on the same spot, such as:
The only answer I can get skirts of different length and shape are rigged differently. Some of them have no skirt bones, others have no thigh bones, third have all three. It all depends on what gave the developers the best result during animating.
Note:
b__CAS_L_Breast__
b__CAS_R_Breast__
The weight paint on these bones will make your mesh get deformed according to slider. The more weight you put on them, the bigger the breast will be.
2.4 Do vertex paint
Explanation:
Vertex paint is used to dictate what variation of dmap the area will morph according to.
The variant controlled by different colors:
Do:
Explanation:
To color only certain area, you can select the faces on edit mode and get back to vertex paint mode, and click the face selection masking for painting button (near the layer).
To see the color vertex in real color, use the Viewport shading - Bounding Box. This you can use the color picker and get the correct color.
2.5 Data Transfer uv_1 from the reference cloth to yours
Do:
Explanation:
When you create a new uv_1 map, this act as a "container" to receive the uv_1 map transfer from your reference.
Remember, the naming has to be in lower case or it won't work.
For better understanding you may watch this YouTube tutorial:
Transferring and Editing a Uv_1 Map in Blender 2.78 by Mauve Morn.
Explanation:
On that video, the reason Mauve Morn tell you to make the seam of your cloth on the side of the body align with the seam of the nude mesh is in order to get a good result of uv_1 map. The closer yours seam to EA design, the better the result.
But in my experience the seam of TS4 cloths don't always follow the nude seam. So it would be best to follow the seam of your reference instead.
2.6 Working on uv_0
Before the next steps Texturing and Baking you need to prepare uv_0 map.
Create seams on your mesh and unwrap them. How to seam your mesh, look at your reference as an example. This tutorial won't explain how to create/ prepare your seam. You need to watch Youtube videos explaining the stuff.
This image is the standard layout map to lay your uv islands out.
Here are the things you need to know about laying out your uv islands:
2.7 Split Mesh don't just mark sharp
In the game if you want to have sharp edges, you can't do it by marking sharp, it doesn't translate into the game. Instead you must split them.
The efficient way to do it is to mark them sharp, then use Edge Split Modifier to split all of them at once.
Do:
Dark shadows
When two edges connect at an angle that is close or below 90 degree, they'll create a dark shadow on the face of the mesh. If you wan't t get rid fo them, split them too.
Dont use auto smooth
It has no use in the game.
2.8 Texturing
This guide assumes you know how to assign materials and play with nodes to give your cloth texture. What this section teach you is how to bake the texture to create maps.
Baking is the process to create a 2D image / a map from the appearance of your cloth.
There are different kind of maps compositing your CC. TS4 uses:
You don't need to make them all (be my guess if you want to), just create these two are enough:
At this step your uv_0 must be ready.
Don't join the nude mesh yet.
Make sure your high poly mesh is in Blender, if not import it.
Do:
Diffuse map
To create details such as the creases. We use high poly mesh details and bake itu to your low poly mesh.
Note:
Before start baking make sure to:
Baking
Do:
Tips: If the bake result is dissapearing to something else, probably because there are one or two of you materials, you select different image texture node, not the one you intended to do the bake onto. The solution just select the Untitled image on the uv/image editor.
Normal map
This map will create depth of your texture.
The steps are the same with creating a diffuse map, but you choose the bake type to normal map.
After you get the result, read this tutorial: https://theslyd.tumblr.com/post/161020478636/tutorial-normal-bump-map-baking-in-blender
to create the type of normal map needed by TS4.
Remember the normal map is in 1024x1024px size.
To save normal map in .DDS you'll need to download a Nvidia Texture Tools Exporter.
Download the Adobe Photoshop Plugin. Later, everytime you save your normal in DDS, a pop up window will appear. Choose BC3 and save.
2.9 Testing your diffuse map and normal map in Blender
Create a new material using the diffuse map and normal map and assign it to all the faces.
Makes sure the image texture for your normal map - space color should be Non-Color data. Else you'll get weird result.
Extra: How to add a logo to a material.
This is if you wanted to add a logo to your material.
Note: If you want your logo to be sharper - higher quality, separate the area surrounding your logo by creating seams and unwrap it.
2.10 Join the nude mesh from EA to Blender
Do:
2.11 Testing
This is an important step. Test your work.
Some cloth are divided into mesh groups. Some aren't.
If your cloth is just one meshgroup only, like a top, then you can import it to S4S and test it.
But if you make a full body cloth with many meshgroups, it's better test your mesh, how it functions in the game before split it. It will safe your time.
Because if you split it first, then there were problem, you had to combine all of them again, removed doubles, split it again and so on.
For male cloth I use the female swimsuit in male category. It has only one meshgroup. Although there will be problem on the foot, but ignore it.
For female cloth I haven't find one.
Make sure:
Import your Blend file. Read another tutorial on how to import Blend file to S4S.
Some problems that often occurred to me
Little gaps on the meshgroup parts. prnt.sc/26n7lru
1. It could be weight paint problem.
Possible solution:
Rejoin the meshgroups, remove doubles, weight transfer, split them again.
2. It could be uv_1 problem.
Your reference has edge splits on the problematic area.
Possible solution: Merge the splits of your reference on the area where the problem occur. Then retransfer uv_1.
Note: Not all splits on the reference can be merged without causing issue on uv_1.
Tips: You could find another reference that doesn't have too much splits .
2.12 Assign mesh geometry group to your cloth
If your cloth works fine and need to be split into meshgroups, now it's time.
When you append your cloth reference, you select object that has the name: S4s4studio_mesh_ followed by number.
Each of those seperated objects represent a meshgroup. Each group has different geometry number .
You can check the number of each of them on the Scene Tab > S4Studi0 CAS Tools.
Now, your job is to dissect your cloth into several mesh groups and assign the geometry number just like your the cloth you're going to clone.
The position doesn't have to exact, except for the pants and legs.
The easiest way to seperate them is by selecting the vertices, then use P to separate them into another object.
If your clone have meshgroups, and you don't do this you can't import your cloth to S4S.
If the cloned cloth is separated into 8 parts, then your cloth also has to have 8 parts.
The naming of the parts doesn't have to be the same as SIMS 4.
2.13. Import your cloth to S4S
Make sure all your cloth objects and rig are visible.
Use the rig that comes from the nude file, not from the reference.
2.14 Creating LOD 1 2 3
All S4S tutorials teach you to use decimate modifier to reduce the polycount. This will do the job with the expense of ruining your topology. If you create this cloth for your personal use, it's not much of a big deal, since LOD 1 2 3 used when the view is very far, noone will probably notice it. But if you want perfection, that means you have to reduce your polycont manually which will take more time.
Download the top and bottom part of the LOD 1 2 3 here. That way you can save time and it will be a perfect fit for the head and the leg S4S of LOD 123.