Rocksteady professional brief Jacket

 

Introduction

When I was looking through the professional briefs that we were given for our first semester of final year I was really excited when I saw this one. I would like to specialize and go into the field of clothing for games or the fashion industry so |I thought this brief would be perfect for me to have a go at. I am personally very passionate about fashion and clothes as well, so I am already very excited about giving this a go. I have some experience in the making of clothes and sewing as it has been a keen hobby of mine since I was young. I was very excited when I learnt about the software 'Clo' and 'Marvelous designer' as it ties my interests of 3D game art and fashion together so I can create simulated realistic pieces for games and for industry. Over summer I learnt how to use Clo3D in a basic way as I was hoping to have the opportunity to use it in my final year of game art. I used a mixture of tutorials online to help get me started with using the software and I can't wait to develop my skills this year and through this project. I have found some YouTube tutorials and channels which I particularly like such as the artist 'Evgenia Petrova' (Evgenia Petrova - YouTube). She has some really interesting time lapses of her using clo and marv which I have3 learnt a lot from over summer. below, I have included some pictures of a couple of my first garments that I mad over summer when experimenting and learning the software. These were done on Clo but I will be using Marvelous designer for this brief but they are almost exactly the same. 

Summer work

This was my first attempt at making a finished full garment, I used a range of tools and techniques on clo as well as my own knowledge of sewing. They aren't the most complex or amazing pieces, but I was happy to have an understanding how to use the software to make clothes. There are actually inbuilt tools so that I can retop a piece to get clean topology before exporting which I have saved a couple of tutorials on so I will be able to be implementing this to make a clean and game ready piece. Also I need to think of ways to optimize my workflow as I am on a tight time frame with the briefs. 

Herre was my second attempt at making a dress and this one was a lot more successful as I used a range of new tools to improve the outcome of the piece. I really enjoyed working with Clo and I am excited to move onto marvelous for this brief. 

Initial idea pure ref board- 04.10.22 week 1

Today to start off my project I collected some images of interesting jackets from a range of places online. I mainly used Pinterest to find these as Pinterest is really good for fashion and clothing imagery. I decided that I really wanted to make a cropped jacket as I love the element of modern style they bring, also the brief states that the jacket must be above the crotch, so this fits in with that specification. I found jackets with a mixture of fabrics and very dynamic silhouettes. These come from a range of runway haute couture fashion lines and ready to wear pieces. Some elements that I really like include, puffer style, rouched sleeves, blazer style collar and possibly a fur trim? I would love to add a fluffy trip around the collar if I have time to learn how to use hair cards to do so. I will continue referencing back and adding more images to this board as my project progresses. 

-For this project rather than the practicality of the jacket I want to focus on the actual aesthetic and design of it. So that I have the opportunity to explore different textures and shapes.

First concept sketches and practice with Marvelous- 05.10.22

Using the images, I collected yesterday I wanted to do some hand sketches of some possible ideas that I could start developing. I took some elements from the jackets I liked and kind of mashed them together to create a range of funky unusual jacket designs. The only definite I have currently is that i want it to be cropped and include puffer sections as i really love the unusual shapes and silhouette this design feature adds to a jacket. Not only that by it also adds functionality to the jacket if that's something i wanted to consider if I decided to make the jacket practical. I will also think about the narrative of the person who could be wearing my jacket within a game and what other design features I should be including to support this. I love the idea of creating shapes and patterns with puffer panels and I think it adds such a unique flow and shape to the jacket. For example, on the sketch bottom left I drew in a heart made with the puffer technique and I think works really well. I know that in marvelous designer there is a tool called 'pressure' which you can use to make a puffed-up garment so I will be teaching myself this before I get started on my final idea. I liked how the designers were using a range of complex panels to add very unique shapes and silhouettes to the jackets. The jacket middle right includes some more structured panels for cups and to add more geometric shapes to it. Going forward I will be assessing which designs were the most successful and developing them thinking about the specifications of the brief.

Before I get started with any further sketches or mockups, I wanted to just recap my skills using clothing simulation software and mess around with marvelous. it is basically exactly the same as Clo, but I wanted to recap my knowledge. I made this very simple quick cardigan with ruffles just to make sure I remembered how to use the tools before I started mocking up jacket ideas. I had never tried making anything with sleeves before, so I made sure to add sleeves as this is going to be a part of the jacket of course. 

After making the very simple cardigan I wanted to have a go at making a proper jacket mockup using the pressure tool to make a puffer style. I looked up a few tutorials online on how to do this which I will link below. It was a lot more straightforward than I thought. To create this effect, I added internal sewing lines to the pattern pieces, then i duplicated the pattern pieces a layer clone under. Once I had done this, I simulated the garment and checked that all the pieces and lining functioned properly. Then I selected all of the front facing panels and set the pressure to 10 and did the same with the under panels but set to -10, this is important to set the values as the same but reversed to get an even and clean puffed finish. I may play around with the values a little to get a more dimensional look. I am really happy with how this process turned out and I will experiment more with this to make more interesting shapes and designs. I think going forward I want to start using this mockup test and adding elements onto it to create a range of concepts which I could start developing into a final idea. 

After making this I realized that the shape of the sleeve pattern is wrong so that under the arm pits are puckering and are not fitting the model properly. I will need to do some further research into the construction of jackets using some free to use pattern pieces as a refence for my construction. I plan to retop and export this as a base for the low/high poly PBR workflow, so I want all the folds and creases to be realistic.

Here is a closeup of the mockup jacket. Using the internal sewing free tool, I will be able to change up the shape of the puffed-up parts. Also, after playing around, I found a tool where you could add a zip to a selected seam, so I did this and was able to easily zip it up to see what it would look like. I love this feature so much and hope there is a way for me to export it with this hehe. 

The jacket with the zip looks really realistic I love how Marvelous has this feature. I could create some interesting zip inserts by stitching it along various seams. 

Half zipped

Back

I love how changing the metalness and roughness map effect how the puffiness is brought out. I could research some interesting fabrics that I could use as part of the design. I may try added some elasticated cuffs and a waistband to the jacket using the elastic simulation feature. 

Final jacket process- Construction on marvellous

From my test jacket and messing about with the inflate setting on marvellous designer I decided that I wanted to ensure that my jacket had a very bold and recognisable silhouette. One of the reasons I decided to go forward with making a puffer jacket is that a very dynamic and unique silhouette can easily be created due to the structure of the jacket. I researched a lot of unique and expressive puffer jackets in the earlier stages and really loved how the panels were able to create such bold shapes. On the image above you can see that after getting a basic puffer jacket shape down I started to add in the internal seams to create the puffer effect, I also wanted to make the sleeves quite large as you can see the difference in size from the mock up. At this stage the jacket is just cropped however I think I would like to try lengthening it or adding some kind of skirt or peplum to the design as I'm not a huge fan of how it is currently looking. I want the end result to be very unique and unlike any jackets I have seen. As i am very passionate about fashion design and I would like to go into making 3D garments and clothing one of my aims from this project is to make a realistic and unusual jacket that I would like to wear myself or could be used as a cosmetic item in a game. 

 Going forward I need to:

-Refer back to some of my research and references to find some ideas for the bottom portion of the jacket as I want to lengthen it.

-Make the puffiness more refined and defined so that the creases can bake on well and I can get a lot of definition in the overall shape. 

-Add some different layers to my jacket so I can explore a variety of fabrics and materials.

Developing the shape of the high poly- Marvellous week 1

Today I played around with the shape of the jacket and really refined internal sewing which creates the puffer parts. I saw some jackets on my research board which had created shapes such as butterflies and stars using the internal sewing and panels of the puffer jacket. I really liked this idea and decided to incorporate a heart design on the front of my jacket in the middle of the chest. I have some items of clothes such as skirts saved which feature an image in the middle of a shape such a hearts or ovals which I think could look really interesting on this design of jacket. I think vivienne weswood has some items which have a similar look such as bags. I will need to do some research on this before it comes to texturing and finalising the high poly. 

I have included what my pattern looks like in marvellous designer. I did some research on what the patterns for coats looked like so that I could get the form to correctly fit the model. For example I didn’t realise that the shapes of the sleeves has to have a slight curve to them so that the fit around the arms correctly without puckering. I looked at patterns availed to me online and was able to adjust them in the viewport for the shape and size of the garment I wanted. You can also see where I have placed the internal lines to create the effect with the puffiness. the heart part is simply stocked in a way on the pieces of fabric to create this effect.

- I think since for my texturing process I will be researching Vivienne Westwood I will have a look into punk fashion and some key features of this since I think it will tie in nicely since Westwood is hugely influences by the punk movement as I am a huge fan of it as well. I will have a look into some textiles which were most commonly used. The brief requires me to include 3 different textures. 

  

For the shape of my puffer jacket here are some of the reference images I used to get inspiration for adding the heart onto the front part of the jacket. I love how all of the different shaped panels combine together to create the jacket. I also really like how the fabric is shiny as it really bring out the shapes of the jacket as it reflects the light making the jackets look very 3D. I could think about using a shiny fabric such as this on one of the variations of my jackets as it really enhances the shape and construction of it.

Here is what the front of my jacket is currently looking like, I am thinking about adding some ruffles or lace around the heart as I want to create a lot of 3D dimension to the jacket and I think this would work well around the heart cameo in the centre. I saw some pieces which had this kind of design feature on Pinterest inspired by Lolita fashion. I may have a look as some clothing pieces from this style to get some ideas. So far I am quite happy with how the shape of the jacket it looking.

This is what the back is looking like as well. I added a hood for some practicality uses and for aesthetic purposes. If I have time during this project I may consider adding some fur around it using hair cards but this will be a last priority feature since I want to really refine the textures on the main jacket. Hair cards take quite a while so I may consider doing this over summer for when I can put it into my portfolio.

Going forward I would like to:

- Further focus of the silhouette of the jacket and possibly add some ruffles and trims around the heart and maybe the shoulders. 

- Have a look at some texture ideas so tat I can incorporate any physical modelling features I need to execute them into my high poly on marvellous. 

Texture research and further developments 

 Sine I am going to be relying heavily on my kill in substance painter to create realistic and interesting dynamic textures I want to ensure I have a good idea of some possible kinda of fabrics I can make. 

On my refence board below I’ve added in some more ideas with interesting fabrics d textures which I found inspiring. The include-

-vinyl 

-denim

-latex

-goretex 

- a variety of cotton and synthetic mixes

 

As my jacket needs to include 3 or more fabrics or textures I need to make sure I’ve thoughrougly researched different ones so that I can choose what will work well in each part of my jacket in terms of structure and the actual visual appeal of where they are placed. The jackets on the board which have used the day and night fabric I find really interesting and would maybe like to have a look at incorporating something similar into my jackets. I could have one as day themed and one as night since I have to create two variations of the jacket textures. 

These jackets are by a designer called ‘Lirika Matoshi’ and I find them particularly inspiring in terms of the very graphical photo printed fabric she has chosen for them. I also really like how she has a dusk version of the jacket as well as a day version with warm colours as opposed to cool colours. She is the designer who created the famous ‘strawberry dress’ which went viral on social media for its gorgeous fabric and cute design. Matoshi focuses a lot on the fabric and prints she uses in her designs as they can make even the simplest of  garment look very unique and one of a kind, as seen by the very simplistic deigns of the jackets above with the very unique choices of fabric on them. From looking at some of her others pieces I have collected a lot of inspiration moving forward. I would still like to have a look into punk fashion from the 70s and also Vivienne Westwood as these could be good assets to my project. 

I quickly did this photobash edit over the top of my jacket In the marvellous screenshot to see how a fabric like the one used by matoshi could work on my jacket. I also photobashed an image of a cross stitch cat into the middle of the heart like I mentioned I could do before. I think adding a ruffle around this could be an interesting design choice here.

Research on artist Kristin Mallison

I was very much inspired by Kristin mallisons pieces and work using tapestry and cross stitch techniques. I also love how she takes the traditional art of tapestry making a cameos ad incorporates them into u to date high fashion pieces. I love the randomness of having a cat in the middle of a skirt or in a cameo on a corset top. Combining realistic images with items of clothing in random and unusual ways is something I really like myself and is definitely coming into the mainstream fashion trends in recent years. Below are some of my favourite pieces from Kristins collection that I am going to use as inspiration for my jacket.

 Love the way she has sewn her beautiful tapestries into Victorian style cameos with ornate lace trimmings around them. It gives them a very Lolita esc feel and this s something that I would like to include. I like the bold large lace on the middle corset top it adds a sense of dimension to the top. 

-For my jackets effect I could even consider making a flip book in unreal and making the image that I choose to put inside the heart move. For example If I did a cat I could look into having it play with a ball of wool inside the heart. I have the inside of the heart have an emissive on it. I feel like this design feature would allow me to do a lot of interesting kinds of effects on my jacket in engine. 

Punk and Vivienne Westwood fashion

Like I mentioned previously I am going to do some brief research into punk and Westwood fashion from the 70s. As there is an exhibition going on in Leicester next year about the punk movement I am thinking of doing my famous based around this and then possibly submitting it to the exhibition. Furthermore I think that I could get an introduction to the movement and some fabrics and textures commonly used through this project. I am very passionate about the punk movement and already know quite a lot about it as an avid fan of the Sex pistols myself.  Below are a few references I have collected mainly from Pinterest which showcase some textures that are common through this fashion movement. 

Vivienne Westwood and Malcom- Vivienne can be seen wearing a latex skirt here

I love the brightly coloured tartan with the fur trim on this skirt and matching bag. 

Jordan wearing a latex playsuit- shows how Westwood incorporates latex into normal clothing to make a statement.

This was from a more recent collection from Westwood from 2020. I love the use of the cute graphic cat print on the middle panel of the corset and the colourful plaid skirt. This is a perfect example of ow aspects from 70s punk fashion have still remained in more recent designs and have become signature parts of Westwood's brand.  

Hearts are very common shape amongst her collections and I particularly liked this interesting bag with the renaissance painting in the middle of the ornate cameo and border. 

On this image you can seeVivienne herself wearing a bright blag look with some aspects inspired by bandage wear such as straps and buckles. 

Johnny Rottan from the Sex Pistols famously wore this jacket made by Vivienne Westwood.  Once again I love the colourful plaid fabric that is used.

A very common fabric that was used during the punk movement was plaid cottons. A very signature look from Vivienne Westwood often included a type of brightly coloured plaid tartan fabric. I also saw a lot of latex as seen on the images above of Jordan who was a punk icon in the 70s who worked in Vivienne Westwood's shop ‘sex’. Any type of clothing could be made out of latex including skirts tops or just full cat suits made from gimp suits. I think including a latex or a similar type of fabric such as vinyl could be an interesting idea since due to the liquid like shine that it creates on garments. This will accentuate the shape of my design due to the light being able to bounce off it easily. A lot of general punk fashion looked very DIY and often included lots of safety pins and other thing customised onto clothes. Some smaller details I could consider adding to my jacket are button badges and safety pins.  

Progress on my finished sculpt-

Here is my finished high poly simulation of my jacket in marvellous designer with my pattern pieces in the 2D viewport on the side. I am pleased with how it looks now that I have added the ruffles on the shoulders and around the heart. There is a split in the middle on these pieces around the heart so that the zip can still function correctly. I have also chosen to add a 3rd layer over the initial padded over skirt. This will be a single thin layer of fabric and much like the ruffles I will be retopping it just as a plane and being considerate of what kind of fabric this will be. I have been feeling back to my reference board quite a bit today and I saw some jackets by the brand ‘Ozlana’ which is a brand that I closely follow personally and they have used a lot of denim In their coats but not for the whole jacket only in sections which I find really appealing. Diesel as well have been using a lot of interesting denim to construct their jackets. I think going forward I might have a look into this fabric a little bit and see if it could be appropriately used in my design. I now need to export my jacket out of marvellous and into Zbrush so I can do any extra sculpting or touch ups. I also will be making the zip in zbrush using a plane and a zip brush on a spline. Due to budget constraints and the complexity of my jacket I just plan on baking the zip on as I don’t think it would be a good use of geometry to add it on.

Zbrush import and corrections

Here is my jacket in zbrush just after I imported it. At the stage I took this screenshot I hadn’t added the over skirt and arm frills onto it yet. I exported these out of marmoset separately and added them in after. As you can see I didn’t export the zip out of marmoset as I plan to make it myself. 

I messed about with different export setting when exporting it out of marmoset as it was quite an awkward process. I decided to go with export in gifting thickness as it seemed to work pretty well on this particular model. I did however have to export the collar separately withught the double layer of fabric as this was not working very well. I manually added this to it in Zbrush which worked quite well. I had to do some slight touch ups on it but for the most part it was a very clean process. I was able to retain the detail I had in marvellous as this was something I was worried about loosing during the export process. However it was quite successful.  

Here is my finished high poly after making the zip on a plane with an IMM brush. This technique worked well and I think it’s going to make onto the base of the jacket really nicely. I am displaying it on my blog with the chrome material on it because it really shows off the detail and construction well. I think it would be intersting for me to make one very shiny jacket and one which has very opposite textures with more roughness such as a cotton or denim as oppose to a latex. I think I’ve already got a wide range of research for my texturing so I am quite confident going forward. 

My next steps in my project:

-import my high poly into max for re top

-Plan out my texture sheets in relation to the budget

- bake and texture my jacket in substance painter.

Before starting my retop I have decided to quickly put my jacket into marmoset just to see what it would look like in a render based software. I am not very familiar with how to use marmoset so I had to watch a few tutorials and I think when it comes to taking beauty shots I will also watch some tutorials on good lighting and presentation.

 I have given myself just less than a week to retop my jacket so that I will have a good amount of time to texture since this is the most important part of this project. 

Retop week 2

This week I was able to quickly and efficiently complete the retop for my jacket. The overall jacket came to be just a few polys under the budget we were set as it had a lot of components to it and since the jacket is very curved I was worried that the silhouette would look faceted if I did not use as much of the budget as I could. I want my jacket to be realistic therefore it is quite high poly.

I forgot to take progress photo of the jacket retop because I was trying to get it done in a short space of time. Fo this asset I did not include elbow pads for decimation since this will only be a static object and will not deform. If this were to be an asset for a character to wear I would have added the relevant decimation loops. 

I did make the topology as clean and even as I could whilst thinking logically about the shape of the jacket. I did not use zremesh apart from the frills since as I was playing around on zbrush i found that zremesh worked very well for a low poly retop and I cleaned it up in Max afterwords. Since the skirt and frills are quite complex and some areas overlap each other like fabric does I found that zremesh was the best method of practice for creating a low poly asset for this part. The main body of the jacket was retopped from scratch though as I had split up the parts so that it would be easier for me to do, such as the puffy over skirt. SInce the frills were plains I found that zremesh was highly effective.  I would have had to retop by hand if they needed to have any kind of deformation topology however this is not part of the brief. 

The frills did need to have quite dense topology as the shapes ended up looking very faceted as I was trying to optimise them in max, however I did not mind since they are such a key part in creating the silhouette of my jacket. 

The image above shows the front view of my retopped jacket. I did not have any issues with the retop as something I was very careful about doing was planning out how I was going to deconstruct my jacket into separate parts to make it easier for me to retop. As you can see I have no retopped a zip asset and this is because the zip sits very flat on my high poly sculpt and should bake on nicely with out the use of any geometry. 

Here is the back view of the wire frame. I retopped the hood as part of the jacket as I felt this would be the easiest and cleanest way of achieving a clean outcome.  Also since the hood will not be an interactable part of the jacket I felt this was a better use of my budget to retop it as one object. I am hoping that the hood will bake on nicely with the definition giving it the allusion that it is not attached.  

The image above I have added to the retop section since I finished making the low poly mannequin just t show what both meshes look like together. 

Here is the back view of the mannequin and jacket in my max file which I will be handing in alongside my unreal file so that you can see my topology easier.  

Unwrap

For this asset I was considering how I was going to split up my jacket onto separate UVs for quite awhile in relation to my texture budget set in the rocksteady brief. I decided on doing 2 sheets, one with the main body of the jacket on and one with the frills. I felt as If this will be the most logical way of splitting the asset up.

I didnt have many issues with unwrapping the main body of the jacket however I did find it was quite awkward to pack as the shapes were very non uniform, I packed it multiple times before I got it to a place that was using as much of the texture space as possible. I was thinking about straightening some UV islands, especially on sheet 2 which you will see further down however it was really distorting the checker pattern and I ended up leaving them with just a relax as I wanted the creases to bake on as well as possible and for the textures to look clean.  

This is how I unwrapped it to minimise any obvious seams on the jacket.

Sheet 2 was a lot easier to unwrap since all of the frills are just planes. In unreal and marmoset these will be double sided as the fabric would have only been very thin on these parts. I did not see any point in giving them thickness as it would have been a waste of geometry for little results.  Again I had some issues with packing this and don’t feel as happy as i could with the use of texture space however without straightening the UV islands and keeping the consistency of the textuers on each island there was not much I could do about this.

For future projects I am quite interested in learning how to use maya for the unwrapping benefits to see if i can further optimise my projects. 

Making my mannequin

I ended up leaving the mannequin to quite near the end of this project because I got into a nice flow of making the jacket and I got very invested in the texturing process. I have decided to keep my mannequin very simple and traditional since you wont see much of it due to the design of my jacket. Also since the textures of my jacket are quite busy and have a lot going on I don’t want the mannequin to distract from this. I plan on making a torso with arms in a simple whit plastic material with a metal and wooden stand. I will include some of the images I will use as references below. 

Since my mannequin was going to be very simplistic I didn’t really use a lot of references. I just used them to get the basic construction of the shape and an idea of what textures I wanted on it.

Mannequin workflow

The workflow I have been doing for my mannequin has been a little bit different to what I usually do. In order to get my mannequin to exactly fit my jacket I exported the avatar I used to simulate it on out of marvellous which required my to quadrangulate it. Then I edited the poly count in zbrush and exported in to 3D max. Then I simply retired over the torso arms and hands and then capped it off and the bottom and top and adding chamfers to any edges that I wanted to smooth and round out a bit as seen on my reference images. My workflow went high-low-high. I then made the high poly from the low poly in max by turbosmoothing it. There isn’t much detail on mannequin such as muscle structure so I didn’t feel as if I had to bring the high poly into zbrush and sculpt further onto it. Also as I said previously I don’t want take away from the jacket in any way.  

I made sure all the topology was neat and non wasteful. I did not include deformation loops on the hands or elbows due to time constraints and because the mannequin was not going to deform in any way as it will be being made out of a light plastic material. I did import it into my scene in marmoset a few times so that I could check the jacket fit well over it and I had to make a few adjustments because some of the exact proportions got lost over the processes. The waistband and the cuffs of my jacket are very tight fitted to the body therefore I really had to get the mannequin perfect so that it would fit these measurements and not clip through the jacket. This was a bit of trial and error and I had to move the geometry around a little bit to get it perfect.

Eventually I did manage to get it to fit well but this did take me a little bit of time to get right. I am quite happy with the sculpt of the mannequin as it is clean and simple which is what I wanted to compliment the complexity of the jacket. I will now move on to unwrap, baking and texturing the mannequin and then putting it into my marmoset scene with the jackets on in order to get some beauty shots. 

He unwrap for my mannequin is quite simple and i did not have any issues with it. It all goes on one texture sheet as this is the budget we have been given for it.  There is some left over space in the corner but in terms of sizing this was the best I could get it to use up as much space as I could.

-the next step is to bake my turbosmoothed mannequin onto my low poly in painter.

Baking and texturing the mannequin

I didnt have any issues with baking as this asset is quite simplistic. In terms of design I was considering making quite an ornate style mannequin however I would like to spend more time on the actual texturing of the jacket more than the mannequin as this is how I have planned out my time.

The textures are also simplistic but this is how I wanted it to look as my jackets will be quite busy and I want to make sure the mannequin does not make my finished scene look too noisy. I picked simplistic colours that would compliment the jacket and not take away from it. 

There are 3 main materials I made for it, a light plastic, metal post and the stand and feet are made of a basic wood.

Baking and texturing my jacket-10.11.22 week 3/4

Today I started baking and texturing my jacket.  Surprisingly I only had some very minimal baking errors which were easily fixed with increasing the front cage distance. I am so pleased with how this has baked, especially the puffer sleeves. I am looking forward to now adding texture to this to bring out all the different components of the jacket.  

Here is the back view of the almost finished bake. In terms of my workflow in painter I baked it a very low resolution to test it and then adjust settings as needed before I bake it at the full 4k res that I will be using to take my beauty shots and make my turntable with. In unreal I will be downsizing my textuers to 2048s as relevent to the rocksteady brief.

As you can see on the image above there are some issues with the AO that I haven’t been able to fix by using the settings so I will either have a look at the actual model in max and make adjustments or paint out the errors on the AO map on photoshop.  However I tried putting a colour over it and it isn’t very visible at all with a texture on. 

I have also included some images of the finished normal map so you can see how the bake has caught the details in the seams and puffiness.  

The frills on the normal map. Look a bit strange but they look completely fine on the material.  

AO front

AO front

Normal texture sheet 

Normal texture sheet

Texturing

Before I start my texturing I collected some further references and did some more research on current fashion and fashion from the 70s, 80s and 90s by different designers. I really love the patchwork design of this jacket above. I am thinking about doing patchwork sleeves as one of my variations. I also think the kind of diy vibes ties in quite nicely with my punk influences.

I already included some references for my design and texture ideas previously in my blog so I do have quite a good idea of how I am going to texture my jackets however I have gathered some further references to solidify my ideas and allow me to create some materials better. 

Here is another example of a modern patchwork puffer jacket.  

I love the fur on this one. I was intending on adding some fluffy parts to my jacket using hair cards but I don’t think I will have time to do that this project.  

I have shown this reference previously but this is definitely one of my primary references for the kind of concept behind the central heart idea. I saw a wide selection of these cameo designs and combined with the idea I saw of the sky and field textures I think this might be an interesting and unique texture I could add. 

When I was researching some other kind of punk inspired fashion I came across this dolce and gabbana jacket which i really loved because of the different coloured plaid patchwork used to make up the jacket. 

Here is another runway piece featuring different colours of plaid material.

I love the contrast of the leather material on this piece from the 80s.

Some other ideas I looked out was the use of a combination of denim and plaid fabrics. I really like how this looks with the contrasting colours an textures. Also I quite like the irony between having kind of punk inspired plaids and diy patchwork with the very popular and mainstream denim. In the 70s and 80s Vivienne Westwood and the punk movement were known to really dislike blue denim so I thought this could give the jacket an interesting sense of irony if combined together.  I am very keen on this idea and will be definitely messing around with it. 

Here is another example with the denim and plaid mix.  

I love the pastel coloured plaid fabric. This is also an interesting twist on the typical colours that you would expect a plaid jacket to have, this might be an interesting colour pallet to use in one of the designs. 

So far my texturing has taken me a really long time. I have realised that I could have made life a lot easier for myself if I retopped the jacket with the topology perfectly separating out the puffy patches on the sleeves as this would save me hand masking out each individual square. I realise now that this is not a good use of my time and next time I will consider how the topology will impact my texturing process and maybe get a clearer idea of how i am going to texture it when retopping it. 

However so far I am liking the denim material with the patchwork fabrics. I have used a denim that I got from painter however I will changing it quite a bit by adding some bleaching, different coloured stitching, changing the height maps and adding pins and other assets to make sure the material does not look like the og and is my own. I am quite pleased with the colour pallet so far.

Another texture which I have added is lace trims around the ruffles from doing my research this is something I really liked it also contrasts well with the punky plaid look.  I did this by making an alpha from an image of lace which I edited in photoshop. I added height in painter which gives it a really realistic look.I think I am going to remove the lace around the skirt though as I don’t really like how it looks. 

I chose to add a cows in a field image in the middle as I thought it looked quite funny and contrasted with the punky themes as it looks very peaceful. Originally I was planning on having the full jacket as this material but I prefer just having it in the heart. I have also done it out of a shiny vinyl fabric to add some contrast to the matte fabric I have used elsewhere.

Assets I am planning on adding-

- Badges inspired by punk fashion

-Safety pins to give it a diy look

-further modify the image n the middle of the heart.

-More detail on the denim

I decided to put my jacket it marmoset at this stage to see what my textuers were looking like and to make any modifications I think will be needed going forward. 

As you can see I have now added button badges, safety pins and a heart embroidery motif on the denim. I did this using alphas which I made from images online and then edited in photoshop. I had som issues getting the shapes to ignore the height map underneath but I figured out a way of doing this using filters. I also was able to bevel them to create a sloped and realistic effect on the pins and badges. 

I chose a Union Jack badge to add today as a nod to the British punk scene along with a famous badge worn by Sid vicious as a nod to such a key figure in the punk scene. 

Finally today In terms of lighting in marmoset it is at a very basic point and I will need to not only finish the texturing but also light it in a better way.  

This is the button badge Sid vicious famously wore.

Texturing progress

I change around the lighting a lot in marmoset, playing with different sky and lighting setups as I am texturing. 

Today I added a ‘censored’ print onto the central cows in a field image I used as part of my design. There are a few influences and reasons why I added this design feature, which I now actually really love as I think adds the needed touch to the jacket. 

I also made the heart more shiny to give it a pop compared to the cotton plaid and denim.

A K-pop idol from black pink wore these trousers and they were always very memorable to me. There were speculations she wore these on purpose after a controversy she had because an outfit she wore was supposedly ‘too provacative’ the public then speculated this is the reason why she wore these trousers in her next appearance. I really liked this clap back at the accusations and also just liked the design and idea of it relating. I made an alpha stencil and stamped it over the heart motif in the middle. 

I have also continued playing with possible lighting scenarios in marmoset. I still need to make the texture for my second jacket design however I have a good idea of what I will be doing for this. 

Finished textures

Here is my finished jacket 1 texture in painter. I am really happy with how it has turned out and I am especially pleased with the bleached gradient on the peplum denim skirt as it ties it in nicely with the yellow plaid. The materials I have included to fit the brief include, denim, cotton, metal, vinyl and corduroy for the waist band.

Here is the back view. Overall I am very happy with my first jacket texturing and I think it really helped doing quite in depth research and collecting some strong references so I had a clear idea of how things would work together. I think this is something that I have done quite well so far. 

Jacket variation 2

I got a bit lost in time making this jacket as I got very nested with it and forgot to take progress screenshots of it however in this blog I will explain my thought process supported by some key references I looked at. 

First of all for this variation I wanted it to be the complete opposite of my first jacket variant. I wanted the colour pallet for this one to be dark and gothic like however with elements of punk influences. Therefore I decided to make the padded sleeves out of a shiny vinyl fabric, this is supposed to imitate the heavy latex wear worn by punks in the 70s and sold at Vivienne Westwoods shop ‘sex’. I will include an image below of this. I didn't want to make the jacket actually out of vinyl as this would not be realistic in terms of the structure, therefore I textured vinyl as a replacement. A benefit of using shiny fabric for the puff sleeves is that it really accentuated the puffer shape whereas in the previous colour the cotton plaid almost masks it. 

Also as I was making this jacket I was watching the Netflix show ‘Wednesday’ in my free time. Wednesday only wears monochrome clothes and that is where I got the idea to make everything black and white in contrast with the colourful first variant. I changed the denim colour to white and stitches contrasting to black. The heart in the centre has been completely inverted giving it an eerie x ray type look  however I did tiny it with blue as I liked how this contrasted slightly.  I also made the badges black and white to fit with the theme. 

I am really happy with how this colour variation turned out as even though it’s similar to my first one it is also veryyyy different which is what I like to see in skins from games in general. 

This jacket texture did not take me as long as the previous variation as I did not need to individually mask out the patches, I still spent quite awhile trying different colours and texture.  Originally I was planning on having the jacket have the plaid patchwork but in different colours. However I wanted to make something completely different with out a plaid texture. 

These are the images of punks from the 70s wearing  shiny latex fashion.  

3/4 view in substance 

Back view

2D sheets

Jacket effect alpha

Since I have to add an effect to my jackets I wanted to do something that would not takeaway too much from the jacket and make it really noisy to futuristic since this was not the theme I was going for. decided on making an alpha using a mask I exported an edited from painter of the stitched hearts around the peplum skirt. This will be a 1024 sheet as relevant to the brief and will glow white.

When I make my final renders in unreal and take beauty shots in marmoset I will add this effect in and take images of the jackets both with and without. Another idea I was considering was making the heart glow like a carebear type thing however I decided not to do this as the textures are so busy I didn’t want the effect to make it look tacky or over the top. This alpha will be applied to both jackets in the same way to keep consistency. 

I had a bit of a hard time brain storming what to do for my dynamic effect but after settling on an emissive I am hoping it is a nice addition to my jacket assets. The emissive hearts will only be for aesthetic purposes and they do not add a ‘function’ to the jacket. 

Presenting my jacket assets in marmoset 

Since I have finished my texturing I set up my final render scene in marmoset and unreal. I spent a long time messing about with lighting and also researching one fashion museum or exhibition display set up to finally settle on this.

I quickly made a circle base for them to stand on like I had seen in some fashion exhibitions and much like my captain brief I also lit them in cube as suggested to me by my lecturer so that I could control the lighting. Was quite awkward to light this since there were 2 assets in the scene and I had to bring out the textures well in both of them at the same time.

The lighting set up is similar to a 3 point set up but with another light on the opposite side to light up the second jacket more. It also has 3 back lights to make them pop out from the background a bit. I am so happy with how they now look on the mannequins and think I definitely made the right decision by making my mannequin simple and white. The lighting also now bring out the shapes and folds of the jackets very well a gives them a sense of realism. 

The image above shows a render I have made which is one of my favourites. I am go into be presenting renders of both the jackets with the effect turned on and turned off ad with the lighting dimmed so you can see them in all scenarios.  

Please see the images below for my other renders.

Emissive and dimmed lighting

Back views

My scene in unreal is directly mimicking this lighting setup but with lower quality textures as relevant to the brief. Both texture sheets are 2048 and the mannequin is 1024

Turntable video

Final thoughts

This project has probably been my most favourite project I have ever done whilst being at uni. I have loved being able to tie in game art with my passion for fashion and design as it is something I have been interested in since I was very young. I learnt how to use CLO over summer and when I saw this brief I immediately knew it was what I wanted to do. As a speciality I’m interested in going into making the clothing for game characters so I think this project has been very beneficial for me to learn new skills and how to texture garments in a realistic way. I have enjoyed the whole process of designing, collecting references and looking into current designers for inspiration for my jacket design and textures. Since I am also a big fan of punk fashion and the punk movement I was excited in being able to incorporate this into my work.

I think for this project my workflow was quite good however something I would like to improve on is thinking about how my retopology is going to affect my ability to texture the object. Having to mask out each individual square took such a long time and was not efficient, this meant I had to spend less time on my second jacket design. I also would like to try out using maya in order to optimise my unwrap and use of texture space. 

Overall I am very happy with the results and am looking forward to making more garments incorporating marvellous designer into my workflow as I really loved using this software.