Another quick question...

[Pendraia]

I've seen that length of of skirt made in practically everything, however the thinner the fabric is the less the folds stand out. I think they meant felted wool, that is to say a wool fabric that has been felted. Not craft felt, which is slightly different material and comes apart with shearing stresses. That is about the same weight of wool fabric as a cloak or winter coat, for mens reference *lol* Pretty stiff, pretty heavy. Another thing that helps skirts stand out more is petticoats, which are underskirts layered in lace and or ruffles to make them fluffy but still pretty light. Most women wore at least a skirt slip under long skirts and many still do. (the other reason to wear petticoats and slips is warmth .. skirts are drafty)

Knee length and full cut are generally the way to go however ... the other major skirt type in the 50's was the pencil skirt. Pencil skirts are a straight line cut and knee length or slightly below. These are most often seen in suits, officewear and formal attire but can be very sexy. As time went on these shrank down into the miniskirt, ultra mini and are-you-sure-that-isn't-a-belt styles.

Well said...would be a very closely woven fabric, whether wool or something else. I still remember years ago when I was working in the clothing trade the manufacturer made some circle skirts for a client from fabric they had chosen and it just kept dropping because it was loose weave and we had to keep releveling the skirt as the hem would become uneven...drove the bosses crazy.

 

[HaiGan]

There are some GREAT resources out there for dress styles if you search for historic or vintage costume design, historic or vintage costuming and historic or vintage clothing patterns. While these produce results aimed at those working with real fabrics, not 3d modellers, they generally give perfectly usable and useful illustration. With sites that give free clothing patterns, those patterns should make good UV map references (makes sense to me to put the seams on the UV map in the same places as seams on the real clothing).

Some links to check would be Decades of Style, the Vintage Pattern Lending Library and Vintage Patterns Wikia. I have a lot of other links which are aimed at a certain level of sewing/costuming skill, and which are, admittedly, focused more on the medieval (my own area of costuming practice) than twentieth-century, but I can pass them along if you are interested.

Someone else might also be able to suggest appropriate television shows and movies for visual references.

 

[Miss B]

Actually, I often wondered if real pattern pieces would be useful in Marvelous Designer, since that's how everything's created. I think having the pattern pieces as guidelines, would go a long way in helping me use MD more.

 

[HaiGan]

Actually, I often wondered if real pattern pieces would be useful in Marvelous Designer, since that's how everything's created. I think having the pattern pieces as guidelines, would go a long way in helping me use MD more.

I didn't even know this existed as a thing! I could be SO into costume design if I could treat it the same way as actual fabric costume design (which I do anyway)! Sorry, hijacked the thread a bit there, ahem, moving along...

 

[Glitterati3D]

Actually, I often wondered if real pattern pieces would be useful in Marvelous Designer, since that's how everything's created. I think having the pattern pieces as guidelines, would go a long way in helping me use MD more.

I tried using them in a very early version of MD and it was a serious fail.

The images on the instruction pages inside a pattern were useful, the black and white images there but not the real pattern pieces. I scanned those images and then created my pattern using them as a guide.

 

[eclark1894]

Actually, I often wondered if real pattern pieces would be useful in Marvelous Designer, since that's how everything's created. I think having the pattern pieces as guidelines, would go a long way in helping me use MD more.

Doesn't Lully use patterns to UV map her dynamic clothing?

 

[Miss B]

Doesn't Lully use patterns to UV map her dynamic clothing?

I don't know if she does it that way or not.

I tried using them in a very early version of MD and it was a serious fail.

The images on the instruction pages inside a pattern were useful, the black and white images there but not the real pattern pieces. I scanned those images and then created my pattern using them as a guide.

Ahhh, OK. I haven't opened MD in quite a while so wasn't sure. I know in Blender I can open any image "in the background so to speak", and use it as a guide for creating my original mesh. Of course, that wasn't for clothing, so not sure if pattern pieces would work in Blender either.

 

[Faery_Light]

It wasn't fun to wear the mid-calf length dresses or skirts that were full and gathered when climbing steps.
I hated those dresses for school, had to go up three flights of stairs in them and often with an armload of books.
Guess who always tripped over the hems?
But I loved them for at home or anytime steps weren't involved.
Did not care for the Pencil still skirt or the ones for all those flouncy petticoats (can-can petticoats).
By the sixties I was into slacks and still mostly wear slacks...they are soooo comfortable.

 

[Miss B]

Once I started working, I was wearing skirts, especially when working for the law firm. It wasn't until the mid-90s before they relaxed the dress code to allow us to wear pantsuits. As the older guard retired, and the younger partners took over, the dress code relaxed a little more, but it had to be a nice blouse over a nice pair of slacks. No jeans and t-shirts, except on the weekends.

 

[Lyrra Madril]

You can import a picture of pattern pieces in MD and trace over them to make your 3d pattern pieces. However, your mileage may vary. I find it simpler to use them as a visual guide and draw the pattern pieces from scratch. However I did study pattern drafting the old fashioned way, so I'm used to making pattern pieces. For 3d you want to simplify anyways, as you don't need linings, inner parts for welted pockets, layered waistbands and so forth. You DO want to make collars properly with the stand and collar as 2 pieces and keep an eye on your fabric normals or things try to turn inside out at inopportune times. And you can make a crinoline or hoopskirt shape in another modeler and bring it in to drape over, which is very handy.

LM

 

[eclark1894]

I admit that I have tried to use a underskirt or hoop shape to make a dress for Dawn. My Cinderella dress which never turned out quite the way i wanted it to, and could never figure out how to rig it. I'd probably just leave it as a Dynamic skirt now.

 

[Lyrra Madril]

The standard approach for all long skirts .. from the waist down rig it all to Hip. And the nice thing is .. crinolines and hoopskirts are pretty solid so you don't need to put in all the thigh and hem movement handles you need for less structured skirts. In RL you can see the motion of the hoopskirt is generally all in one piece, so the womens legs are like the clapper in a bell. In fact back in the day there were a lot of rude jokes about ladies who got their skirts in a breeze or caught on something and flipped up to flash passer's by. Also it is seriously difficult to fit in a modern bathroom stall in a hoopskirt ...

LM

 

[Gadget Girl]

I didn't even know this existed as a thing! I could be SO into costume design if I could treat it the same way as actual fabric costume design (which I do anyway)! Sorry, hijacked the thread a bit there, ahem, moving along...

If you do actual sewing it's definitely worth checking out a demo version of MD. I'm similar, I do lots of sewing, but the traditional way of 3d modeling doesn't work well for me.

That being said MD can be a bit frustrating. My biggest issue with it is that the documentation is horrible. You see, pricey as it is, it's a scaled down version of their other software that is for drafting patterns for actual cloths. The problem is they haven't really made to versions of the manual, or even marked what isn't a feature in MD (the way the Poser manual does with Pro vs. regular versions).

And because it's pricey a lot of the tutorials out there are for older versions.

Not to discourage you. I actually really like the software, it's just kind of a rough learning curve to really get the features down. Parts of it are just super intuitive if you've sewn, but other parts of how that works in 3D are not. If you do try it though, I'd recommend the tutorials from Fearless Makers. They aren't all up-to-date, but they do a great job of introducing you to some important concepts.

You can import a picture of pattern pieces in MD and trace over them to make your 3d pattern pieces. However, your mileage may vary. I find it simpler to use them as a visual guide and draw the pattern pieces from scratch.

I'd agree with this. I feel like standard pattern pieces don't 'scale' well to Dawn (as an example). Most pattern pieces are made to be sized, but around sort of average dimensions. Dawn isn't really average. And when actually sewing you tend to err on the side of making things slight big or loose, knowing that you can do final adjustments to make them fit perfectly. In MD however, you can always add fabric back in if you need to.

 

[Miss B]

And you can make a crinoline or hoopskirt shape in another modeler and bring it in to drape over, which is very handy.

I've been thinking that's what I need to do, as even with a simple A-Line shape on a long dress, gives me the A-Line when viewing from front or back, but in the left and right views, the skirt is stuck to my avatar so her butt is huuuuuge, and the front is stuck to her legs, which is obviously NOT what I want.

I'm going to have to try creating what I want in Blender, then import it into MD, and see if I get better results.

 

[Pendraia]

That's the thing isn't that our 3D dollies might need their own basic sloper pattern as their size varies to standard patterns. Would be great if they were a standard size 10 or 12, add to that how would measure them? lol...understanding how things work helps though whether your using MD or a modelling program. I thought that there was a way to use basic patterns but wasn't sure as I haven't looked at MD since the first beta and realised how expensive it was going to be.