Creating Cloaks For 3D Printing Please help!

[Mike_M]

Hey guys! I just made and account to hopefully get some help!
Here is my Issue:
I am currently trying to create a Cloak for a character in zbrush and i also would like to be able to pose this character with character creator to.
My issue is that in Zbrush and in character creator it seems you can only realistically use cloth physics with a 2D plane object.
Which would be totally fine if i was to just create one pose with this cloak i could simulate the cloth place it how i want and then dynamic subdivide and add thickness from there i could just add detail etc.
The problem is how do i create a Cloak that has thickness that i can then pose in different poses without having to recreate the cloak every time i want to put it in a new pose?
I was thinking the best way would be if there was a way to just create the cloak how i want with all the details etc and then bake it right down into a 2D plane…then pose the cloak and then bring back all that detail AND the thickness? I know there is a similar workflow using zremesher to get a lower subdivided object and then bake your higher detail object on top of it after giving more subdivides…
Is there not a way od doing this sort of thing where the lowest level of subdivision level for the Cloak is actually a 2D Plane? Coz that would to me be the best way!

Thank you so much to anyone who can help me with this because i cant find any answers!
P.s I am currently using Zbrush 2022

[Spyndel]

Hi @Mike_M

@Mike_M

The problem is how do i create a Cloak that has thickness that i can then pose in different poses without having to recreate the cloak every time i want to put it in a new pose?
I was thinking the best way would be if there was a way to just create the cloak how i want with all the details etc and then bake it right down into a 2D plane…then pose the cloak and then bring back all that detail AND the thickness?

It’s generally easier in any workflow to go from low poly to high poly, than it is to go from high poly to low poly.

I might suggest keeping a piece of 2D geometry for quick posing, then creating a higher res mesh with thickness in a non-destructive manner from that mesh on demand.

One way to do this would be to pose your 2D mesh, then create a newer mesh with thickness with the Subtool> Extract function. If you leave the entire mesh unmasked this will create a new 3d solid from the entire mesh. This will leave your original mesh intact and create an entirely new subtool. Subdivide the resulting subtool as desired to smooth it, and delete the Creasing (Geometry> Crease> Uncrease All) if you want the edges to soften during smoothing.

You can keep reposing the original mesh and creating new meshes based on it. If you create multiple subdivision levels up from a low poly base, you can switch to the lowest level to make broad changes to the mesh while keeping high res detail intact on the higher levels. Then you can create the extract from the higher level mesh.

Another way might be to use the Geometry> Dynamic Subdivision feature with the Thickness slider active to non-destructively preview the mesh with the desired degree of thickness. This won’t change your mesh while you are in preview mode, but it will update the mesh when you click “apply”. If you want to keep your original 2D mesh you would need to apply this to a duplicate.

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Going the other way is more complicated. It would require you to create a new 2D surface each time from a 3D mesh, subdivide and project the detail on it from the original mesh using one of the various methods.

Various detail projection methods:

https://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/topology/zremesher/transferring-detail/

https://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/sculpting/project-undohistory/

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Otherwise the only way to map high res detail to a low res mesh is to use UVs and displacement maps.