Share Your Clothing CC Making Workflow!

Hi.

1). Preparing the base for MD.
Instead of making patterns in MD, I clean up a maxis mesh and import it in MD as patterns. This saves me a lot of time, especially when making fitted clothing.
2). Making adjustments in MD.
So I open the file with the avatar, import my pre-made patterns, adjust them to my liking, mirror, simulate, etc.
3). Retopologizing in MD.
I manually retopologize the mesh in MD.
4). Preparing the mesh to be adapted in ts4.
I find the reference of a similar shape, specifically at the bottom ( must be long enough to contain the right data but not too long to function differently, skirt/pants, tight/puffy skirt). After exporting the garment from MD, I import it in the blend file with the reference. Then I delete covered areas from the body(not the reference), close holes (snap extruded borders to the holes in the body), and unwrap the created geometry.
5). Adapting
The order is not very important but you want the garment to have no gaps anywhere before you transfer weights and vertex paint, so you need to remove doubles before doing it. Having gaps in the same places as the reference ( as in, along the main seam) may result in neater uvs, though.
So I transfer a uv_1 first, then remove doubles, then transfer weights, then vertex paint.
You can make uv_0 before that or after you join the garment with the body.
6). Testing
I select the uvs of the garment and export the layout, this will serve as a temporary texture. I assign the cut and the type, import the garment in the package with one meshgroup, then that temporary texture, test it in the game on the highest settings.
7). Making textures
I bake the diffuse, make other maps and test it in-game again, on the highest settings.
8). LODs
Make LODs, test in-game on the lowest settings, in live mode, zoom out while the animation is running.
9). Splitting into meshgroups to interact with accessories and shoes properly.
If needed, i clone a new maxis item that functions like mine, export its blends for all lods, split all of mine the same way, use Remove unused vertex groups, import all in the package, check in live mode.
10). Adding more swatches
Add more colored textures, check in CAS, on the highest settings.
11). Make thumbnails.
Render all thumbnails.