Hello creators! I’m Anya, and today I’m gonna show you how to export your 3d model
from CLO 3D and import it to Blender. I’m gonna texture and render my model in
Blender so I’ll not export textures from CLO. Since I use Blender I will show you how
the object looks after import there, what materials are transferred, how seams
and topstitches look. But I believe that all techniques that I’ll show you here are also
applicable for importing to another software. First of all, I’ll show how to
prepare your model for export, then I’ll make a UV map and bake
normal map texture for seamlines. And finally, I’ll show you how to export
.obj and .fbx and import them to Blender. So Let’s get started! I have this dress, created and textured earlier
in CLO. Even if I don’t export textures I always quickly texture it here to see how my textures
look, where I want to apply or change them. All fabrics, buttons, and topstitches will be
transferred to the .obj or .fbx file during export so you can texture each of them in Blender
individually. So make sure that you have all your fabrics, buttons, and topstitches here. I have 2
fabrics - silk and lace and 2 topstitches - single and bartack. Only buttonholes and I guess graphics
will not be transferred as an object, because they apply as a texture on your model. To transfer
it you will need to bake a diffuse texture map. So before you export your model from CLO
I recommend you to check the following: First - The mesh should be clear. There
shouldn’t be any collisions. You can switch to the texture surface mode to better check it.
Second - check that all faces are set correctly. If not - flip normals. Black areas - wrong side of
the fabric, colored areas - right side. Make sure that facing, hems, bindings have the right side
visible. It’s important for many things such as proper texturing and rendering,
applying buttons, topstitches in CLO. Then Decrease particle Distance to
have a smoother mesh. The lower you make it the more smooth and realistic the mesh will be.
If you’re going to export topstitches as .obj, not as a texture - Change Z-offset for the
topstitches so they do not float in the air. I prepared a snapshot for you
to show you the difference. By default, there is a gap between fabric and
topstitches. It looks weird so I always remove this gap. Press J (edit topstitch tool), select
all topstitch, go to the property editor and change the Z-offset to 0 in the property editor
You can see that now they are located right on the fabric surface, and it’s much better.
And last but not least - Adjust the intensity and thickness of the normal map for seamlines and
puckering to make them more realistic. Seams and puckering as you see them in the 3d window
are made by adding a normal map that looks like bright purple lines. They create small
fake bumps that look like folds and wrinkles. You can adjust the intensity and thickness
for them to make them more or less visible, thicker, or thinner. For example, I have 0.15
thickness for plain seams and 0.07 thickness for topstitch seams. Topstitch seams are always
less visible and noticeable than plain seams. I don’t have puckering on this dress, but if you do
- adjust it as well. Later we will bake the normal map texture that will keep all this information
and then plug it into our model in Blender. That’s all my recommendations,
Now let’s create a UV map. No matter if you want to export your model with or without textures - you need
to create a correct UV map. Basically, we already created it when we
drafted 2d patterns. UV Map is a flat 2d representation of a 3d model, which allows
you to texture your 3d model correctly. The cool fact about CLO 3D is that we create a UV
map first and then transform it into a 3d model while in other 3d software we make a 3d model
first and then unwrap it to get a UV Map. But even though it sounds strange, it’s not a UV
map. Yes, you texture it here, and your textures look great because CLO applies them on your 2d
patterns, but during export, CLO 3D takes the UV map that is located in the UV editor. In the top
right corner. And this is how it looks if you just created a 3d model and didn’t touch it here.
Complete mess-up and different scale patterns. You need to arrange all the patterns
and place them into these squares. First - let’s give them a shape of 2d
patterns as they are in a 2d window to set a correct scale. Press the right mouse
button and select reset to 2d Arrangement. Now we need to scale them down
and place them into a square. At this point, you’ll need to do the
rest of the arrangement work manually. Unfortunately, there isn't
an auto arrangement tool. Don’t forget about the scale. Patterns
with the same fabric should always have the same scale, so make sure that you scale
them only when you selected all of them. And always remember about grain direction.
Do not rotate your patterns randomly to better fit the square shape. You can only flip
horizontally or vertically and even that’s not always if you have a fabric texture with a defined
pattern. To flip - press the right mouse button. Usually, for one object we make 1 UV in a square
0-1. But 1 UV map has a few disadvantages. First, the resolution of your textures
will become significantly lower because you scale down your patterns.
Second - sometimes it’s tricky to place all your patterns into 1 square,
especially if you have a big project. And also,
it's tricky to keep the scale and not rotate them. So there is a way to make several UV maps.
Blender added a UDIM feature in ver 2.82 that allows reading UV map sequences for one
object. And that’s actually a big deal. You can make several UV maps and the scale will be
bigger so the resolution also will be bigger. The amount of UV squares is not
limited but remember that you need to place them from left to right in
a positive part of the coordinate system. In other words here. You can go to
the next row above the first one but also fill them from left to right. That’s
how all the 3d software read the UDIMs. I decided to place the front, back, and bindings
in the first square and the ruffle skirt in the second. I have a bias grain on all patterns for
the silk part and it will be correct to place them all at a 45 degrees angle. But I’ll better rotate
the fabric texture in Blender at 45 degrees. Since these bindings have a bias grain I can
rotate them 90 degrees, but actually, it’s not convenient here. Sometimes it’s better to do it
in the 2d pattern window in a simulation mode. You can also check if patterns don’t
go out of the borders and placing them into the square automatically. Select
them right click - fit UV to 0-1. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with the
second UV, so check the borders manually. And The UV map is done and you can export your
model. But. I’m going to save the normal map for seamlines, that we adjusted earlier. And
we can make it by baking a Normal map texture. Let's change the preview to the normal
map and you can see that fabric textures are applied at the moment. So we need to
delete them to save only the seam line bumps I want to set these textures here so I will create
a new colorway. Go to the top right corner, select "colorway", press plus button, and select "new
colorway". Go back to the UV editor and delete the normal map for fabrics: lace and silk, and also
delete the opacity map for lace if you have it Now let's bake our textures. Press this button:
"bake textures", select "saving path" and name it. Then select size, 4k is enough for this case.
UV area. Since we have two UV squares let's select all tiles. Dill texture seams: it means how
many pixels will be outside of each pattern. If you set 100 the area outside will be bigger
but it will intersect the adjacent parents. So about 10 is enough, and select normal map
texture type we don't need anything else. Press save. That's it, we have normal maps and you
can check them in the folder. Now let's export for the dress. You can export it in .obj or
.fbx formats depending what you're going to do with your model and where you want to import it.
.obj can only keep mesh, UV, and materials data while .fbx is more complex format which
can also keep the animation. I'm okay with .obj right now. For export go to "File" ->
"Export: -> .obj and select the file path. Here we need to select what patterns, avatars
graphics and trims you want to export. I select top stitches and all the patterns
and deselect my avatar, then select single or multiple objects. Multiple objects mean that each
pattern will be saved as a separate 3d object but for some reason it doesn't work for .obj only
for .fbx export. But I need one object so I select single. Depending on what you're going to do with
your model in blender, select thin or thick mesh. If you want to change the mesh select thin if
you want only to get a pretty render thick is a good way. If you select thin you can also select
unweld or weld mesh. Unweld means that vertices on adjacent patterns will not be joined together,
and you will be able to move them separately. Very important to check unified UV coordinates.
It will write the UV info to the .obj. These boxes are for baking diffuse and normal
maps but we have already baked the normal map in UV editor, so uncheck them. Then select the scale
according to the working units in the 3d software. I use meters in Blender. And finally select
save file with absolute texture image file path, or save with texture files zip. Since I don't bake
maps here I won't have any textures so I choose the absolute texture image file path and click ok.
That's it, .fbx export is pretty the same except you can also select export animation or cache
animation. I will show you this. Export .fbx. You can select these options here Now it's time to import this dress to Blender and
see how it looks. Go to file import wavefront obj and select the model. Wait a bit
while the program loads the model, and here we go everything looks great. Now let's switch to material preview and you can
see that seams are not visible at the moment. This is because the baked normal maps are
not plugged into the material shaders. Go to the shader editor, select the model,
and go to material properties. H ere you can see all the materials that were exported from
cloth 3d: silk, lace, and two drop stitches. We need to plug the normal map to silk and lace
materials. Select silk and add image texture node: "Shift + A" -> image texture
and select the normal map that we baked before. Select only first of them, the rest
will be connected automatically. Change the color space to "none color"
and add one more node -> normal map. Then connect color to color and normal to normal
and now you can see that seams are visible. Now we need only to copy these
node settings to the lace material, and plug it in, and that's pretty it. Now you can texture your model in
Blender and render beautiful images. Much better than in CLO 3D, btw.
If you want me to show you how to texture your model in Blender -
let me know in the comments. Also, give me a thumbs up - it will help
people find this video on Youtube. So that’s all from me, Thank you for
watching, and I’ll see you next time! Bye!
