How to Get Good Topology for your Marvelous Designer Models 

NOTE! If you are following this tutorial, make sure when you export your OBJs from MD that " Unified UV Coordinates" is checked. Mine was not by default, it wasnt mentioned in the video so I didnt notice it at first. This process wont work when you project your mesh on to the high poly if you dont do that. Having that option unchecked leaves your UVs on top of eachother , which makes a mess when projecting. Just a heads up! :)

FOR PEOPLE IN 2019: When trying this today I ran into a problem with the uv's all being on top of one another. I'm not sure if this is due to having a newer version where they implemented this change. Turns out there is a UV editor in marvelous designer and it will export the uv's based on what appears there NOT on the 2d sewing pattern. In the top right corner of MD there is a drop down menu and simulation should be selected, you can click it and go into uv editor to change the uv's. Id recommend doing this before arranging your pattern to 2d so you can have both the flat and the 3d with the same uv's to transfer the attributes. Hope this helps for anyone who had this issue too.

for those wondering in the new version of Marvelous there is a remehs option that works really well and preserves UV's !

This is a great tutorial but I'm still so glad they implemented retopology tools in the newest version of Marvelous 😩 saves me a lot of headaches

I had to do that twice on two Marvelous works to fully integrate the workflow. I used your video for the second attempt. This is definitely the absolute technique. Maya Transfer Attributes is so insanely useful. Thanks for sharing. Hopefully someday Marvelous will come up with something equivalent to ZRemesh instead of their crappy quadification. And we will be able to avoid that many extra sets.

Holy cow! My jaw literally dropped when you "sewed" it to the high poly in seconds. Absolutely amazing. Thanks for the awesome tips as always

About perfect time for me too. I´m working on a project in wich I was thinking to do exacly that. You saved me the struggle :)

This is a perfect workflow for still images, but what about the workflow for cloth animations coming out of marvelous designer ? Thanks

Guys this is a fantastic video, thanks! I use a slightly different technique where I retop the same way you do in Maya, but then blend shape flat marvelous mesh to the simulated one. Once you make a blend shape, use wrap deformer in Maya to make your retopologized mesh follow the flat marvelous mesh. I think it works out to be roughly the same thing, except I don't transfer UVs from marvelous mesh but make my own on the retopologized flat mesh.

First time I've watched your channel. Very helpful for a tunic I just made today in MD.

God, this is exactly what I'm searching for. Thanks you a lot!

It's crazy how you always post the most relative things. Keep it up!

Hey, I use this technique a lot. Wanna add something. While drawing quad at cloth piece joints , maintain edge counts so that it will be easy to stitch piece together. Only model half dress and mirror merge it.

Wish this video popped sooner in my search! Thanks guys!

You guys just blew my mind with Transfer Attributes. Thanks so much!!

Just what I needed at the moment, thanks!

My cookies just intercepted this video and got me out of a longer day at work! Thanks as always guys! :D

Great Tutorial, Thank you so much

one of the best vids on the internet

You could have also stated that for more complex folds you can select by UV shell and easily hide unneeded sections to get to other overlapping and folded sections. Nice walk through

Wow, just like in Blender! Awesome)

I'm at a loss of words to describe how cool this is.

I feel like I've learn something very useful :D Now just have to figure where I can use it. Nice video, just discovered your channel and already watched some of your videos, it's good content !

Super useful video! Thank you

it is also good to know when you retopo, keep in mind that you have to merge the vertices at the end after transf. attributes, so baically "piece_one": 10 rows of edges (or vertices to connect later) thant the "piece_two" should also have 10 rows a little reminder here for others

Hey, guys! I just started retopologizing a Marvelous Designer garment in Maya, following the steps outlined in the video. However, I'm running into issues because my garment also has buttons and stitching. Although the buttons and stitching should've been separate subtools, I exported the garment as a single object. I was just wondering if there was a way to save my current retopology state, re-export the garment from MD without the buttons and stitching, import to Maya, and translate my current retopology state to the new mesh? Thank you for your time.

This is so helpful wtf ! thcnk you for showing this trick !

Love you guys. Thanks for always taking the tome to share your gems with us. Very appreciated. Thank you. Can this transfer attributes transfer animations too? Like if i export an animation file from marvelous, could i transfer the shape and position of the sim to the retopologized mesh?

thank you thank you thank you!!!

Hey Henning and Morten. What was the approach for alembics with animation data? Did you wrap deform the retopo mesh on top?

Thankyou so much! Amazing!

Hi guys, just a quick question--when exporting your clothes from MD. I'm working on a raincoat that has thickness to it. I know you guys select 'thin' when exporting, but the thickness on my raincoat is pretty important, shouldn't I do the topology re-work with thickness on when exporting?

Hello Guys! Thank you for your video! i've see this method and i use it but i've one question: Can you use this process with the simulated mesh ?(because the export is Alembic, so we can seperate the mesh). There is a method for transfer the attributs for keep the vertex position? retopo => transfer to simulate mesh(alembic)? Thank if you have an idea! Cheers!

Help, when I transfer the retopologized to the MD mesh, my retopologized flat mesh dissapears. What am I doing wrong? I would appreciate the help

thank you so much guys, it's probably most usefull video I'wathced ever

Nice work! very useful

Can someone help me with the problem about the part of importing the flat OBJ which export from Marvelous Designer to use zremesher. I'm wondering that why when I use Zremesher on my imported Marvelous Designer flat, some of flats will move from the position I imported, even I selected keep border. Thank you for your video, and thank you for reading this.

hi guys thanks for another awesome video, so help me here, if i have a lets say, hoddie, that i want to add some thickness, the workflow will be like: export pattern in 2d thin, retopology the patern in maya, project the uv to fit the original shape, weld the vertices and them i can add some thickness with Zmodeler or extrude in maya? this will work?

Let's say you go through this whole process of transferring the clean topology onto the MD mesh. Is it possible to transfer animations as well to the clean topology if you exported out an alembic file from MD?

Nice, I think you could probably achieve a similar workflow in modo using the UV transform procedural tool, I might give this a shot. Thanks

I got everything except for the part that you need to model the back and the front with same topology .. how would i do that ? By placing them next to each other and start quad draw or what ?

What do you guys think of the Remesher (beta)? It’s pretty amazing I think

I have done several techniques trying to clean the topology and save time. The only way to make it quick and simple is export with quads using MD. Although the quad may not be accurate and what to expect the topology result. On other hand, to make it less headache is to fix it in 3d software and that would do it but the higher density is quite crucial to fix when the number of vertices. Thats how it works to solve a headache problem otherwise MD should integrate a guide point like zbrush does. will see in the future

everytime I try projecting the topology from the 2d to the final mesh maya crashes with a fatal error .__.

Love u guys!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

How can you retain this uv map when adding thickness in ZBrush? Would that erase the UV's on the map?

Never use Transfer Attributes in Maya. Mind blowing. Thanks again. BTW. The flat model imported from Zbrush is fragmented. Need to be merge vertices first. (If anyone has problems with merge UV🤔)

Transfer Attributes in super tool, why I never hear about it)) Thanks for sharing!

Hey guys, I have a question regarding this method used in games. This method is brilliant for cost-effectiveness and takes into consideration possible future tweaks. However, what if you want to use it for games where the poly count can't be crazy high? I noticed that the quads might cause unevenness along the big wrinkles. Do we have to go in and draw out all the proper face angles? If so, that would take a lot of time and also break the effectiveness of the method for future-proofing. What would your suggestions be?

So after I transfer all the details, what do I do if I want to add extra polygons to the model, how do I transfer the topology from the model to the UV's?

Thank you for the video, MJTheHunter.

Can this kind of attribute transfer be done in Blender, of Max?

LUV U GUYS! HUGE THANKZ! ^)

Hi, How are you, can I do this in 3DS Max instead of Maya?

What if you took your new topologised shirt back into Marvelous to simulate, would you lose that topology you made?

Merging the vertices in Maya doesn't work for me, the innen part of my UV islands is still broken. No matter what I select(faces, vertices, UV islands) pressing MERGE doesn't work. Any clue why this could be happening?

It is impressive method. However what about collars or deep creases? In order to get good poly flow for them one must anticipate the creases and twists of fabric while looking at the flat plane (or the marvelous screen). In addition of making sure that edges will match one must also take that into account, otherwise you get polygons twisting diagonally which is unusable. Even standard Marvelous mesh beats - mesh like that. The only true pro way I can think of the task of retopology of a collar for example is to export them separately and retopo them in 3D view while making sure that the edges will align with the following pieces. I have greatly struggled with this phase and yet to find a really good workflow for more complex fabrics.

12:36 whats your approach for modelling the seams after merging the vertices? Adding 2 (or 4) supporting edges and scaling the centre one down? (if so how do you scale it equally all around the loop if it's not circular?) It was hard to catch it. Thanks guys, just in time for me as well! :)

Cool thanks BUT: what is the workflow when you want your clothes improve inside of zbrush (to add more/better folds etc)? - Export "cloth_flat.obj" - Export "cloth.obj" - Import "cloth.obj" to Zbrush and refine it and export it as "cloth_zbrush.obj" - inside of maya use "cloth_flat.obj" and "cloth_zbrush.obj" along with the way in the video, would that work?

I have to transfer one part at a time. If i try to transfer together like combining every thing and transferring them make them crumble

You guys are heaven sent 😮😯😮

You can find a free mel scripts that take a 3D mesh and flatten it into the UV pattern just like ZBrush does. You don't need ZBrush. I have often in Maya done fast retopologizing by selecting the edges long one side of a polygon now in the shape of a UV island and convert "Polygon To Curve" and use the option of 1 Linear for degree. Rebuild curves so that opposite curves have same number of spans and use linear and uniform. Do this for at least 4 sides of the UV island. Next using those curves do a Birail 3 and use options Polygon, Quads, Control Points. Don't use the resulting quad mesh with "Transfer Attributes" for more control possibilities create a "Subdiv Proxy" and change the input of the polySmoothProxy to Linear and set the Linear Level to 0. Now copy the UVs using "Transfer Attribues" to the original Birail quad polygon and it will automatically be transferred to the Subdiv Proxy mesh. Next reshape the Subdiv Proxy mesh using the "Transfer Attributes" to reshape it into the 3D shape. Why use a Subdiv Proxy and not the original Birail quad mesh? Because you can make changes to the Birail quad mesh and the changes will automacially update to the Subdiv Proxy. If say you want need more edge loops you can just rebuild the curves to what ever spans you need. The Birail mesh will update and so will the Subdiv Proxy. Why not just do the editing like adding edge loops on the Subdive Proxy? Any edits you make will not follow the 3D shape. You will have to redo the Transfer Attributes. Besides you can create the LODs a lot faster simply by rebuilding the curves. In theory you could Transfer Attributes to the Birail so you can better see where to insert edge loops and other edits. Basically I can retopologies faster using the birail method and since the curves have uniform spacing there the seams meet are either exact or so close that performing a merge on all the parts and then tweaking the merge distance means very little cleanup needed at the seams. Not to mention that creating other LODs by simply rebuilding the curves is a huge time saver.

Can we use this method in blender ?? if yes soo how ?? transfer attributes

Does 3ds max have the same tool?

I can't seem to figure out how to export my UVs in a manner that lays them out identically to the 2D pattern window. Mine always overlap one another. Even when I have the "Unified UV Coordinates" checked they wont export the way they should. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Can you update this tutorial with the retopology built into marvelous designer?

can u pls make a video for marvelous to blender 2.8 for production

You can also do this entirely within Maya. Just use the transfer attributes window to transfer the position, by UVs. Using the shirt and a newly created plane, this will flatten your mesh out, just like in ZBrush/Marvellous.

I have been using Couture for Maya. It's easy and fast, bit wiser than ZRemesher.

You're cool guys, guys!!)

the new retypology tools in marvelous are amazing and you get the uvs for free so you dont have to transfer attributes anymore you just weld the exact number of verts that you did in marvelous.

When I use "Transfer attributes options" to paste it to the UV, my mesh disappears completely. Any help?

Do you have software and video about maverlous .

Do you have program teachings about maverlous I want to learning it. Can you teaching slow .

About Retopology tool inside marvelous designer ... is that a game changer now? Btw ... thanks for awesome tutorial ❤❤

New update have remesh(beta) we would love to see video on that. :)

Hi guys. How about to make another video, where you create a shirt? Not T-shirt. But shirt. The thing is there is quite problem with sharp edges (collar on shirt for example) and I cant get through. No matter how hard I try I can never make it sharp. The edges are quite rounded more or less, but not sharp. Thats why I would really like to see how you do it. Thanks a lot and best of luck

Is it possible to replicate that in C4D?

Cool! :)

Спасибо.

Really wish that C4D can have this attributes transfer!

is there a thing like that in blender??

can i import retopology in md and re sim ?

Wow!!!

there is something like transfer attributes in blender ?

You guys saved my ass. Once again.

Note: Always keep an eye on the measurement menu... i fckd it up first because i should have gone for cm and it was m :D

Games need this too :]

What kind of people "dislike" this video >.< I guess some ppl just wanna see the world burning Y_Y

2:20 you give either of those to a rigger and they will say "ahh, no"

Anybody know of a comparable workflow in Blender? (Please don't attack me. I use Maya and Marvelous as well.) This transfer attribute tool is indeed handy.

anyone know a way to do this in blender

I used your excellent technique and it worked really well. There was an issue however. I made a dress with a very ruffled hem and a lot of the vertexes had their normals facing all crazy directions. here is a pic. i.imgur.com/14IXYRs.png . So I am going around with the edit vertex normal tool and manually correcting this. It seems to be fixing the issue. I wonder if you have seen this problem before? I wonder if there is a better way to fix it?

11:25 ... you gotta be f*cking kidding me!!!! °___° Now I understand why you say that in production you need utility UV sets. This is brilliant. Please, please, please make a video about what magic UV sets can be used for, otherwise. (edit) Two followup questions: 1. Can this be replicated in Blender somehow? 2. How does the new retopo mode from MD9.5 do in comparison?

@FlippedNormals Hi guys =) I am currently working on my Master Thesis which includes a lot of 3D modeling (Human Faces) so I was wondering if you know any Tech-Paper, Scientific or other citable Source for the following: Edge Flow Topology (So I could argue why I decided to model the way I did) An answer would be just amazing! (otherwise I will ahve to cite you in one way or another :-P ) THX Jack

Awesome! Anyone here knows how to do this in Max? :O

WAIT WHAT

Hmmm

"Zbrush has a tendency to destroy your mesh" That silly goose.