I know there at least two way to make clothes follow the bones, can any tell which is the one that is better. Here is what I have been using according to some tutorials on you tube: On one they say to select the dress and the bones and with automatic weights.
Another one says, to unselect the mess and select the clothes and then the bones and with empty groups, then it says to select the mesh and combine the clothes with the mess and then use weight paint. I tried both, but they seem not work too good. Any help?
I like to transfer the weights from the body to the clothes. Get the body weighted correctly. Then select the body, shift select the clothing item and go into weight paint mode. In the Tools tab, under Weight Tools click Transfer Weights. In the options pane, for Vertex Mapping choose Nearest Edge Interpolated. For Source Layers Selection choose By Name. That should copy over the nearest weights from the body to the clothing item.
Then it might need some clean up. Flex the rig and see where it needs touch up. Leave the rig in a posed position, and you can sort of paint the clothes into place, if you get what I mean. Like rotate the arm up, then paint the arm and shoulder vertex groups to fix any intersections. Then rotate the arm down and repeat.
The rig setup correctly, but most important, the deform bones placed properly and the vertex weights finished. If the automatic weights don’t give you really good results, use weight paints to get the vertex weights right before transferring to the clothes.