So I’ve never actually rendered anything in blender before, for the past year or so I’ve just been playing around with shapes, learning how the physics systems work, all the shortcuts and features that the program has- but 2 days ago I wanted to actually try and model some cloths and it turned out okay, but I want to know if anyone here has any tips on the methods/workflows of creating cloths. Do you use sewing patterns? How do you texture hems/endings/edges, or texture cloths at all? What about sleeves, or pinning, or maybe even how to make good looking knots out of bows or anything else that isn’t a cylinder? Any advice regarding clothing, how to make them, model them, render them, w/e would be great. Thanks for anyone who can help out. Sorry for the vague questions, but any tips at all would be awesome. Most videos on youtube about the subject just show the same thing.
I tried playing around with the cloth physics system a few times to get folds in clothing, but I find it to be more trouble than it’s worth unless it’s for an animated project.
The method I use is to box model the garment around the character, making sure the topology flows along the seams (i.e. A shirt would be a rectangle with two extrusions at the top for arms.) . I then UV unwrap, Subdivide and add a shrinkwrap modifier to conform the mesh to the character. Since the topology follows the seams, it’s now easy to extrude out geometry for the hem lines.
At this point I would use the sculpting tools to add weight, folds, and wrinkles. It helps to study fabric. Keep in mind that fabric will drape over concave geometry, such as the chest, but it will hang loose over convex geometry, such as the arch of the back. Folds will flow in the direction the fabric is being pulled in, or they will flow perpendicular to the direction it is being bunched up. An example would be a character leaning to the left with a tucked in shirt. The left side of a shirt would have more horizontal folds, and the right side would have more vertical folds. Pose like your character and study your own clothing. You don’t have to sculpt every single fold. You just want to give an indication of flow.
After all this, I would use a seamless weave pattern for the fabric texture.
Hey man, thanks a lot for the response and for the advice. I am having trouble texturing skirts/dressing. I can’t seem the do it because the UVs are just so damn deformed or in a perfect circle- which neither I know of how to handle. I’ll put in some pics of what I worked on to give you an example of my skill level and also the UV examples I’m having a hard to texturing the ends of (with a reference picture within the pic next to my cloths models).
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The last picture here is how I end up having to deal with the UVs- even before simulation. I use a flat somewhat circular shape for dressed is all of these, and I just don’t know how to put a straight rectangular texture onto the endings of the dresses (like in the reference photo within the viewport). Thanks again for the help!
That’s a great start. 
As for the UV layout, it helps to think of it in real world terms. If you were going to take that dress and lay it out flat on the ground such that none of the fabric was overlapping, how would you go about it? If you tried to do it the way you have those UVs, it wouldn’t be physically possible.
A better option would be to take a pair of scissors and cut down the middle of the backside of the dress. Then you could simply unfold the dress flat.
In Blender, UV seams are your scissors. When unwrapping a mesh just ask yourself, “How can I cut this mesh so that I can unfold it as flat as possible.”
Thanks cg! And yeah I know what you mean about using seams and unwrapping. Check this out - this is how it ends up with one extra seam down the middle of the back. To be honest, this feels like it should be simple, so I feel really stupid having such a hard time with how to cut it up.
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It’s nothing to feel stupid about, man. Nobody in their right mind enjoys laying out UVs. To be honest, I personally went several years into my learning journey before I even bothered to know what UVs were. Haha You’ve got it right, though. That is exactly how I would lay it out.
The way I’ve done this is to use a subdivided plane to render out a rectangular grid deform to the shape I need.
I set the dress texture, or exported UV image as a background image. Then the object is UV mapped to a rectangular grid, and deformed to the shape of the dress’ UVs. Can apply whatever fabric texture is needed and render out a texture for the dress.
Going through those extra steps to deform the texture might actually make it physically inaccurate unless it’s something like a custom knitted weave. Think of how such a dress - or most clothing for that matter- would be made in real life. You would take a square piece of fabric and cut out a shape similar to your UV layout then sew the ends together. The weave pattern isn’t morphed into the shape of the cut fabric. Just some friendly advice.
For a design such as in this sample image…
…the texture to be used around the bottom edge is almost certainly going come from a rectangular image. All I was suggesting was a method to bring that rectangular texture into line with the UVs of the dress. You are correct that with a uniform plaid pattern it might look odd to a dress maker.
EDIT: I understand, and didn’t differentiate properly. The fabric weave should run squarely across whatever the pattern piece is. But a print on that fabric generally needs to follow the garment rather than the weave. AT least that how I see it… I might be wrong. I’ve been wrong before.
No. You’re right. I was only thinking of the weave pattern, not the lace at the bottom of the dress.