Step-by-step tutorial for the item creation and preparation stages.

Follow these steps to make your unique item available on the ZERO10 AR Fashion Platform.

• Step-by-step tutorial for the item creation and preparation stages.
• Item project requirements
• Item limits
• Software requirements
• 1 Geometry
• 1.1 Garment items preparation
• More quick-tips
• 1.2 Garment items retopology and UV
• Retopology
• Use next rules for retopology:
• UV-unwrap
• 1.3 Non-garment wearable items preparation
• High-poly
• Low-poly
• 1.4 Non-garment wearable items retopology and UV
• Auto-retopology
• UV-unwrapping
• 2. Textures
• Baking
• Edition
• 3. Self-check.
• Modelling Self-check
• UV Self-check

Item project requirements

To join our platform you must adhere to the following guidelines:

Item limits

Keep in mind that your item’s shape cannot be changed during the simulation. So, when shaping the item, think about how it will fit.

Please pay attention to the following:

Multi-layered items are impossible to create, for example a dress with many inner layers.

Headwear (hoods are headwear too), shoes, bags, and other accessories are not compatible at the moment.

Items with the collar above the chin level are currently incompatible.

Sleeves shouldn't be longer than the wrist.

Items with long train are incompatible.

Full white (#FFFFFF) and full black (#000000) items are not recommended due to lighting and shadows.

Software requirements

We highly recommended preparing your model in Blender (2.8 or later) after you create it in any program comfortable for you.

Also, you will need a program such a Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, or Substance Designer to create textures and a program to make retopology or auto-retopology such as Zbrush, Cinema4D, Maya, or Marvelous Designer.

1 Geometry

1.1 Garment items preparation

Use this guide for your items created with CLO or Marvelous Designer.

From the very beginning, you need to use our mannequin_template_v1.zprj/mannequin_template_v2.zprj to sew your item.

The avatar should not be moved or resized, this is important!

For a correct cloth simulation, disable the “Ground Collision” in the project simulation settings according to your software.

In CLO, turn on the “Divide Mesh” parameter in the avatar properties so that polygons are not visible. (“Subdivision” in Marvellous Designer).

After you have finished creating your item, you must save three copies of the model: a high-poly with all the fine details and wrinkles (this model is recommended to be used later for baking textures for your low poly), and two more copies: one is optimized for further retopolgy and low poly creation, the latter will be used for texture baking.

• In order for the fabric to straighten out faster and not jam into the body of the avatar, you can use the Strengthen mode - Right Mouse Click menu in the 3D window.
• UV map should be accurate. To achieve this link (arrange) a UV map in the 2D window.
• Set all item parts to “Freeze” (select all > Right Mouse Click > “Freeze”)
• Save this as “High_Poly_to_Bake”
• Duplicate this whole project and use it to work on the following:

At this stage, we need to keep the basic shape of the item leaving as much as possible only one layer of fabric and the necessary minimum of details.

Since our low-poly mesh must match our high-poly, we do not turn on the simulation and we work with the frozen item. Remove all extra layers from collars, cuffs, and other areas, you must have only one layer for each section of your garment.

Merge small details using the Merge tool (RMC (Right Mouse Click) menu in the 2D window) on selected faces

On those parts of clothing where fabric simulation is planned (skirts, hemlines of dresses, shirts made of “soft” fabric, etc.), it is better to avoid wrinkles and to smooth the mesh, so wrinkles will form in the application itself during fabric simulation. Deep creases should also be avoided.

If there are several layers on the model that cannot be baked into textures, and they remain in the low-poly design (for example, a multilayer skirt), then they need to be as far apart as possible so that the fabric does not intersect.

More quick-tips

In down jackets, we leave only the top layer. If the sleeves are without cuffs (inflated), then we leave the inner layer on the sleeves from the wrist to the elbow only.

We also make straps and cutouts not with patterns, but with textures using the alpha channel on the diffuse. This is the best approach to avoid problems when we rig the item.

Zippers, buttons, pockets, etc. are made with textures and should not be exported as trims.

Once our low-poly model is ready we export it for retopology with the following settings.

Lastly, we also need the item’s pattern in expanded form. To do this, select all and unfreeze, then convert the patterns into a 2D view (select all > right-click menu in a 3D viewport > Reset 2D Arrangement Selected). Do not simulate the garment!

Export with the same settings.

1.2 Garment items retopology and UV

Retopology

Use this guide to improve the compatibility of your model with our platform. Correct topology and UV are very important for the best look of low-poly models and texture creation.

Import the low-poly meshes and the flat pattern into Blender then join them as shape. After that you can delete the low poly mesh.

See the item from a front view and create a simple plane. It should be on the same plane with the flat low poly mesh

Add a Shrink-Wrap modifier. It help don't go over the edge of flat low poly mesh

Create a mesh with no more than 9,000 polygons.

Use next rules for retopology:

• joining edges must have the same number of points.

• polygon flow need to follow UV-part’s shape

• uniform grid is the best way to perfect look of your low-poly model.

Apply Subdivision Surface modifier to add polygon counts and smooth mesh

Set all of the boundaries edges, hold Shift+E and move the cursor to make the origin look of UV-shapes.

Note! Check the polygon count. It should be less than 9K polygons.

UV-unwrap

Open the low-poly model in a Blender. Then, toggle Edit Mode, select all (hotkey A), next press U > Unwrap. Transform parts of your model UV (on the UV-unwrapping flat view) for the best packaging. Check UV density is at least 70-90%.

Use the Surface Deform modifier to join the flat mesh and the mesh with complete retopology. After that, select the flat mesh in Object Mode and tweak the value to the one. Your mesh with completed retopology should get the same shape. Then apply Surface Deform. In Object Mode, select the resulting mesh, press RMC(Right Mouse Click) > Shade Smooth.

Connect the parts and check the normals.

Your final mesh should have no UV distortion. Use the color grid checker to check this.

1.3 Non-garment wearable items preparation

Use this guide for non-garment items(like robot epaulettes or demon wings), created in Blender, Cinema4D, ZBrush or any other 3D software.

For such items, you also need to use our avatar for the correct size and position of your model mannequin_template.obj.

The avatar cannot be moved or resized, this is important!

Have fun! Create your own unique model, and check the limitations described at the head of this document!

To create your model, we recommend following one of these two methods: first create a low-poly model, then create a copy of it and add details and bumps to it (best way for hard-surface modelling); or create a high-poly model (for example, using Sculpt tools), then use one of the tools for fast automatic retopology, optimize and get a low-poly.

After you complete creating your model, you should have two copies of this model.:

• low-poly, made following our recommendations, which will be used for UV-unwrapping, rigging and submitting.
• high-poly, which contains all the fine bumps, detailed surface and smooth geometry.

High-poly

• We recommend you make your high-poly model so that the shape of all hard parts does not differ much from their shape on the low-poly model. If you put the low-poly and high-poly in the same scene, there should not be a large distance between their surfaces. It may contain only a slight smoothing of sharp edges and bumps.

• If you want to use some additional patterns with bump effects on your future textures, we advise you to make them exactly the geometry on your high-poly model, then at the stage of baking, you will get better textures than if you brush-presets (for example, Zip Brush in Substance Painter) for these patterns.

• The scene with your final high-poly model should not contain any unused objects such as inactive geometry, lights, animation keys, or unapplied modifiers. To save the process, you can make a copy of the project in which you edit your model.
• If you are imagining your item with several different materials, make each material a default material with a different color.

• Check again that your model is correctly positioned on our avatar, and is also in the same position as the low-poly model of your item.

Low-poly

AR-ready technology has limitations (we described them at the beginning of this document), so it's important to use polygons wisely in the process of creating your model. The smaller detail needs to have a smaller number of polygons.

Be sure to optimize the fine details on your model, all bumps and small details should be baked into textures.

The scene with your final low-poly model should also not contain any unused objects such as inactive geometry, lights, animation keys, or unapplied modifiers. To save the process, you can make a copy of the project in which you edit your model.

The pivot of the final mesh is at absolute coordinate (world) zero. Check again that your model is correctly positioned on our mannequin, and is also at the same point as the high-poly model of your item.

If you used the low-poly to high-poly model creation pipeline, you can go to the UV creation stage for your low-poly model. If you first created a high-poly model of your item, we suggest you take a look at our Auto-retopology quick method using ZBrush.

1.4 Non-garment wearable items retopology and UV

Use this guide to improve the compatibility of your model with our platform. Correct topology and UV are very important for the best look of low-poly models and texture creation.

You can use the next automatic method or any other classic manual retopology pipeline.

Auto-retopology

For this stage, we recommended using ZBrush software, because you need the ZRemesher tool. But if you have Cinema4d 2023 you can use it, as it also contains ZRemesher tools. You can also use QuadRemesher (this tool is used as a plugin in Blender, Cinema4d and other software).

Use this method to save time to make a low-poly model of your item. You need to have a high-poly model of your item with all details, subdivisions and bumps.

1. First, you need to duplicate your high-poly model to “Hi-to-Lo-copy”. Now you are working with this copy.
2. If you have a composite model, delete all the smallest details (like a zipper handle or flat button), if you have a sculptured model, apply a smooth brush for all of the small bumps and sharps. Finally, you need to have a smooth copy of your model, preserving only general shapes and hard edges.

3. If your model has smooth groups (or phong breaks) skip the next step and go to number 5.
4. Now, you need to make smooth groups on your model. You can make it automatically with the “Auto Smooth” parameter in Blender (”Normals” menu of an object) or with “Phong Tag”+”Break Phong Edges” in Cinema4D.
5. Import your model into ZBrush, placed your model in center (use “shift” for angle snapping), and activate Edit mode.
6. Go to Geometry > ZRemesher. Check the parameters “Keep Creases”, “Detect Edges” and “Keep Groups” is active. Set parameters “Target Polygons Count” up to 9 (this value multiply to 1000, for example, if you want the final model to have 3000 polygons, set the value to 3). Press the tool’s main button.


7. Now, save your model like “Item_remeshed.obj” and go to the next stage.

UV-unwrapping

You can do this stage into any your favourite 3D-software, use similar steps as we show using the Blender as an example for this process.

1. Open your resulting model in Blender (2.8x or later), select layout "UV Editing".
2. In the Edit mode > Edges, select the intended seams of your model. In the UV menu select "Mark Seam".

3. Then, select all the edges (hotkey A), in the UV menu select "Projection from View".
4. Once your model appears on the right side of the UV preview, open the UV menu again and select "Unwrap".

5. Transform parts of your model UV (on the UV-unwrapping flat view) for the best packaging. Check UV density is at least 70-90%.

2. Textures

Baking

We highly recommend make baking stage in Marmoset, but you can use Substance Painter for this.

Before exporting the high-poly model, set contrasting colours material to different parts of your model and reset the Rotation, Location and Scale.

Set materials after import in Albedo Map tab.

Create a Bake Project and make your first test bake. Click on P(Preview) to see the result.

If the baked surface has errors, try removing them using a different cage.

You must bake using a high resolution. The minimum baking resolution is 2K. Best way to bake at 8K resolution.

At 8K resolution, you need to bake the Albedo map (you will use it later for the ID map in Substance Painter) and the Curvature map (it is needed to work with generators in Substance Painter). You also need Thickness and Position maps, they can be baked in 2K.

Edition

We recommended using Substance Painter for the next steps.

Import all of your backed maps.

Set materials using black/white mask with color selection.

Set bumps on seams with UV border generator (applying on mask).

If you have Normal and AO maps with errors, you need to deactivate all of the maps without Normal and AO. After then you need to add white mask and fix these maps.

Set Blur filter to Normal maps or Height maps which contain high-sharp bumps.

Have fun, and make your awesome textures!

3. Self-check.

Modelling Self-check

• Your final low-poly model’s polygon count is below 9K.
• Check that your item is placed and sized to our avatar like you want it to look.
• This model doesn’t contain unused geometry, unapplied modifiers, or other objects and materials.
• Mesh is quad-dominated, without overlapped and hidden geometry
• Correct smooth-groups.

UV Self-check

• UV density is at least 70-90%.
• Distortion less.
• UV parts placed into 0-1 square.