Hi Everyone, I’m Emmanuel Katto from Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), I’ve been able to design high-quality clothing for characters in Blender, utilizing modifiers that allow the garments to move naturally with the character. However, this setup works only within Blender itself. Once the modifiers and bones are removed for export, I’m left wondering how to ensure the clothes still behave as expected in a game engine.
One option I’ve considered is using numerous shape keys to handle cloth deformation, but this seems inefficient for more complex garments. I’ve also looked into various techniques for handling clothes in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), but most examples I’ve found rely on binding the clothes to the character’s body skeleton. This approach doesn’t seem ideal for items like skirts or elaborate outfits with large accessories.
My main questions are:
How should I approach the creation of clothing for a character to make it work seamlessly in a game engine? I’m particularly interested in garments like skirts, capes, or complex outfits that might need more than just a standard character skeleton.
What kind of rigging structure should be used to make sure the clothing can be applied professionally in a game engine? Should the clothes have their own separate skeleton, or should they be bound to the main character’s skeleton? And if they are bound to a separate skeleton, how do I keep them synchronized with the character’s body when exporting?
In cases where the body has numerous shape keys and the clothes might suffer from clipping, I’ve heard that using surface deform modifiers in Blender is a good solution, but how do I replicate this behavior once the model is imported into a game engine like UE5?
I would appreciate any advice on workflows, best practices, or techniques for setting up clothing for games in a way that ensures everything works well both inside Blender and in the game engine.
Thanks in advance for your insights!
Regards
Emmanuel Katto