* UPDATE!! *: Reducing marvelous designer mesh polycount
May 29, 2017 18:33:58 GMT -5
orangemittens, MisterS, and 8 more like this
Post by Elegant Lily on May 29, 2017 18:33:58 GMT -5
So i finally decided to do a mini tutorial on how to reduce marvelous designer meshes. This is because these days, some marvelous designer meshes that are posted online are usually of a high density which can really slow down one's computer. If you make meshes with marvelous designer and have no way to reduce the mesh, i would recommend you follow this tutorial.
There are technically three ways to reduce marvelous designer meshes:
1) Using maya: Unfortunately not many people can afford maya but if you have maya, just know that you can use it to retopo your meshes. There is a student version available for free if you are a student. But i would not recommend it because you will still have to edit it a lot even after reducing the polycount
. Here is a tutorial on how to do it: here
2) Using zbrush: Zbrush is a sculpting program that can also perfectly reduce your meshes without spending hours manually drawing the quads. However, the downside is that it is expensive and you wouldn't want to buy it just for the sims
. But for people that have it or want to get it, it is a very good way to reduce your meshes. It is what i personally use. Here is a tutorial on how to use it: here
3) The third one is called instant meshes. And it is free. Yeah you heard me, FREE
. It takes less that five minutes to reduce your md mesh and saves hours of stress 
. I recently heard about it and i can tell you that i totally recommend this to marvelous designer creators 
. The reason is that it gives you a working mesh in couple minutes by letting you decide how dense you want your mesh to be.
Here is a better comparison between marvelous designer mesh, zbrush (the expensive one) and instant meshes.
As you can see, there is not much difference between the two meshes except the fact that zbrush mesh is smoother, but that is not really important.
As you can see, there isn't much difference in blender either. So i would totally recommend the program to everyone. Here is a link to download instant meshes: here
Make sure to scroll down until you see "Pre-compiled binaries", then select your operating system and it should download. Here is a tutorial on how to use it: here
TIPS
1) When exporting your mesh from marvelous designer, reduce the particle distance to 10 in order to give it more smoothness. Also, make sure to check the option "weld" and "thin".
2) Try to limit your polycount to 5000, which means you would have to reduce your mesh to 2,500 because the game will automatically convert your mesh to tris, doubling the faces.
3) Know that you would have to recreate the uv map because these programs get rid of the uv map that you got from marvelous designer. If you don't know how to create uv map in blender, go to youtube and search for it.
4) If you use instant meshes, it might give you an error when exporting your newly retopoed mesh. All you have to do is to give your file a name and make sure to add .obj to the end and click "save". For example, if you name it tshirt, it would be like this "tshirt.obj" and click save. It will get rid of the error.
I hope you learnt something in this tutorial. Enjoy!
UPDATE!!!
I figured out another way that is easier and will not require any extra programs. You will also get to keep the uvs. Marvelous designer has a quad tool that can help you convert tris to quads. I would recommend after following this tutorial, check out this tutorial by SLYD and it will help you regain lost details.
In marvelous designer, select your pattern and under miscellaneous, change tris to quads.
Then reduce the particle distance to something like 8. This will increase the details of the clothing. When you increase the particle distance, your polycount reduces, and when you reduce it, your polycount increases. Then simulate.
Then go ahead and export obj. I save mine as "high_poly".
Your export properties should look like this... Make sure to not export the uvs. And click ok.
Go ahead and select your pattern again and this time, increase the particle distance to about 21 depending on the type of clothing you make. Make sure it is still in quads. If you create a shirt only, you will have to increase the particle distance to about 26 and if you create an outfit, you will reduce it to about 20. This is important in order for your mesh not to be too high poly or too low poly.
Your polycount should look like this...
Export the obj. I export mine as "low_poly".
Make sure your obj export looks similar to this. Check "Unified UV Coordinates". It is important.
And that's it. When you go to blender you will now have a perfect uv. You can also rearrange it in marvelous designer.
Hope this helps
There are technically three ways to reduce marvelous designer meshes:
1) Using maya: Unfortunately not many people can afford maya but if you have maya, just know that you can use it to retopo your meshes. There is a student version available for free if you are a student. But i would not recommend it because you will still have to edit it a lot even after reducing the polycount
. Here is a tutorial on how to do it: here2) Using zbrush: Zbrush is a sculpting program that can also perfectly reduce your meshes without spending hours manually drawing the quads. However, the downside is that it is expensive and you wouldn't want to buy it just for the sims
. But for people that have it or want to get it, it is a very good way to reduce your meshes. It is what i personally use. Here is a tutorial on how to use it: here3) The third one is called instant meshes. And it is free. Yeah you heard me, FREE
. It takes less that five minutes to reduce your md mesh and saves hours of stress . I recently heard about it and i can tell you that i totally recommend this to marvelous designer creators 
. The reason is that it gives you a working mesh in couple minutes by letting you decide how dense you want your mesh to be.Here is a better comparison between marvelous designer mesh, zbrush (the expensive one) and instant meshes.
As you can see, there is not much difference between the two meshes except the fact that zbrush mesh is smoother, but that is not really important.
As you can see, there isn't much difference in blender either. So i would totally recommend the program to everyone. Here is a link to download instant meshes: here
Make sure to scroll down until you see "Pre-compiled binaries", then select your operating system and it should download. Here is a tutorial on how to use it: here
TIPS 1) When exporting your mesh from marvelous designer, reduce the particle distance to 10 in order to give it more smoothness. Also, make sure to check the option "weld" and "thin".
2) Try to limit your polycount to 5000, which means you would have to reduce your mesh to 2,500 because the game will automatically convert your mesh to tris, doubling the faces.
3) Know that you would have to recreate the uv map because these programs get rid of the uv map that you got from marvelous designer. If you don't know how to create uv map in blender, go to youtube and search for it.
4) If you use instant meshes, it might give you an error when exporting your newly retopoed mesh. All you have to do is to give your file a name and make sure to add .obj to the end and click "save". For example, if you name it tshirt, it would be like this "tshirt.obj" and click save. It will get rid of the error.
I hope you learnt something in this tutorial. Enjoy!
UPDATE!!! I figured out another way that is easier and will not require any extra programs. You will also get to keep the uvs. Marvelous designer has a quad tool that can help you convert tris to quads. I would recommend after following this tutorial, check out this tutorial by SLYD and it will help you regain lost details.
In marvelous designer, select your pattern and under miscellaneous, change tris to quads.
Then reduce the particle distance to something like 8. This will increase the details of the clothing. When you increase the particle distance, your polycount reduces, and when you reduce it, your polycount increases. Then simulate.
Then go ahead and export obj. I save mine as "high_poly".
Your export properties should look like this... Make sure to not export the uvs. And click ok.
Go ahead and select your pattern again and this time, increase the particle distance to about 21 depending on the type of clothing you make. Make sure it is still in quads. If you create a shirt only, you will have to increase the particle distance to about 26 and if you create an outfit, you will reduce it to about 20. This is important in order for your mesh not to be too high poly or too low poly.
Your polycount should look like this...
Export the obj. I export mine as "low_poly".
Make sure your obj export looks similar to this. Check "Unified UV Coordinates". It is important.
And that's it. When you go to blender you will now have a perfect uv. You can also rearrange it in marvelous designer.
Hope this helps
