Roy's Tank Top Tutorial

Here's another example of how to model clothes in MAX for your Poser figures. This one is based on the Push Modifier. Click here to download this modifier if you don't already have it! You'll find it at the bottom of the page.

The first step is to import the model we want to make clothing for. You need to use the HABWare OBJ2MAX plugins. These will let you directly import the OBJ files used by poser. NOTE: Most of the time when loading figures into MAX, you want to directly load the OBJ file from the :Runtime:Geometries: folder. This is one of the few times you don't want to do that. If you export your figure from Poser (before doing any actual posing of it) it will be much easier to add the clothing to it later. Make sure you have done all of your body shaping first, if you are going to change the size of the model at all, but none of the posing, aka moving limbs around. The HABWare plugins allow you to selectively import only the portions of the model you need, for the tanktop only import the chest, lCollar, and rCollar. If you aren't sure, import everything, and just delete the pieces you don't want afterwards. Removing the extra pieces is not actually required, it just makes things simplier.

The second step is to attach these objects to each other so they become a single mesh. Add an Edit Mesh modifier to the chest. Make sure the Sub-Object button is NOT selected, and you should see the Apply button. Use this to attach the left and right collars. The image shown here just has the one collar added. Note: Make sure throughout the entire tutorial you never accidentally move, scale, or rotate your model as a whole. This will make realigning it inside Poser a nightmare.

Now even though we have attached those meshes, there are duplicate vertices along the seams. Go into Sub-Object Vertex mode and select an area that will completely cover one of the seams. Set the Weld Vertex amount down to 0.001, and push the weld selected button. This will weld all of the duplicates together. Repeat for the other shoulder.

Its time to apply the Push Modifier. The Push Modifier, if you weren't aware, expands a mesh along its vertex normals. You can think of it as like if your mesh were a balloon, and you were blowing more air inside it. As with most modifiers in MAX, when operating on Poser objects you need to use really small values. 0.002 seems to work well for me.

To define the outline of the tanktop, I decided to chop away the parts I didn't want with boolean operations. So here I've made four basic objects, 3 cylinders, and a box. The middle cylinder was squashed and rotated to provide for a low cut v-neck. You can make up your own as you see fit. Just make sure you check in each view to make sure that your basic objects completely span across the model. The "gotcha" here is you'll find when you drag your basic objects out, MAX won't make them. Whats going on here? Again, since the scales are so small with Poser, when you draw out a box thats 0.001 wide, MAX thinks you accidentally dragged it since its so small. You will have to drag the box out really big until MAX makes the object, then you can go to the modifier panel and shrink the sizes down as you need. Also, the Align tool is very helpful in this step. Use it everywhere you can!

Now we are ready for the boolean operation. Select the chest, and pick Compound Objects and then Boolean. Pick the Pick Operand B, and select the Subtraction (A-B) and you should see the results immediately. Repeat for each other basic object.

Now our tank top is looking pretty good, with one exception, its got nipples! The first step in removing these, is to go into the Edit Mesh modifier, and hide all vertices, and all faces except around the ends of the breasts. This will make editing much simplier. Here I've hidden everything, and zoomed in some.

Now go into Edit Mesh and select Sub-Object faces. Select and delete all the faces in the center of the nipple. Then delete all the triangles that point away from the nipple, leave the ones that point in. When it asks you to delete the isolated vertices, say yes.

Now we want to switch to Sub-Object Vertex, and move all of the vertices to the center. A good trick here is to set the Reference Coordinate System to Local instead of view. Now when you move the vertices along the XY plane, they move along the slope of the triangle, instead of up and down. Try it set both ways and you should be able to tell the difference. We are trying to line up each vertices in the center so we can well them. You may need to move them along the Z axis once they are in the center. Once they all look like they are directly on top of each other, select them all in a group and weld. If they didn't all weld, readjust the stragglers, reselect them all and weld again. Repeat for other side and you should be done!

Of course, you will probably want to texture map your top inside Poser, so we better add UVW mapping modifier. I chose cylindrical, but I had to go into the Sub-Object gizmo and rotate the mapping cylinder around to match the top.

Now you need to export your tank top to an OBJ. Make sure you UNcheck the rotate object checkbox. You do not want your work rotated. Don't forget to save your work as well!!

Fire up Poser, and import your tank top. Be sure to UNcheck every item on Poser's import dialog. If you were careful to never move your tank top inside MAX, it should load up, perfectly in place! Color and style accordingly.

The first step is to import the model we want to make clothing for. You need to use the HABWare OBJ2MAX plugins. These will let you directly import the OBJ files used by poser. NOTE: Most of the time when loading figures into MAX, you want to directly load the OBJ file from the :Runtime:Geometries: folder. This is one of the few times you don't want to do that. If you export your figure from Poser (before doing any actual posing of it) it will be much easier to add the clothing to it later. Make sure you have done all of your body shaping first, if you are going to change the size of the model at all, but none of the posing, aka moving limbs around. The HABWare plugins allow you to selectively import only the portions of the model you need, for the tanktop only import the chest, lCollar, and rCollar. If you aren't sure, import everything, and just delete the pieces you don't want afterwards. Removing the extra pieces is not actually required, it just makes things simplier.

The second step is to attach these objects to each other so they become a single mesh. Add an Edit Mesh modifier to the chest. Make sure the Sub-Object button is NOT selected, and you should see the Apply button. Use this to attach the left and right collars. The image shown here just has the one collar added. Note: Make sure throughout the entire tutorial you never accidentally move, scale, or rotate your model as a whole. This will make realigning it inside Poser a nightmare.

Now even though we have attached those meshes, there are duplicate vertices along the seams. Go into Sub-Object Vertex mode and select an area that will completely cover one of the seams. Set the Weld Vertex amount down to 0.001, and push the weld selected button. This will weld all of the duplicates together. Repeat for the other shoulder.

Its time to apply the Push Modifier. The Push Modifier, if you weren't aware, expands a mesh along its vertex normals. You can think of it as like if your mesh were a balloon, and you were blowing more air inside it. As with most modifiers in MAX, when operating on Poser objects you need to use really small values. 0.002 seems to work well for me.

To define the outline of the tanktop, I decided to chop away the parts I didn't want with boolean operations. So here I've made four basic objects, 3 cylinders, and a box. The middle cylinder was squashed and rotated to provide for a low cut v-neck. You can make up your own as you see fit. Just make sure you check in each view to make sure that your basic objects completely span across the model. The "gotcha" here is you'll find when you drag your basic objects out, MAX won't make them. Whats going on here? Again, since the scales are so small with Poser, when you draw out a box thats 0.001 wide, MAX thinks you accidentally dragged it since its so small. You will have to drag the box out really big until MAX makes the object, then you can go to the modifier panel and shrink the sizes down as you need. Also, the Align tool is very helpful in this step. Use it everywhere you can!

Now we are ready for the boolean operation. Select the chest, and pick Compound Objects and then Boolean. Pick the Pick Operand B, and select the Subtraction (A-B) and you should see the results immediately. Repeat for each other basic object.

Now our tank top is looking pretty good, with one exception, its got nipples! The first step in removing these, is to go into the Edit Mesh modifier, and hide all vertices, and all faces except around the ends of the breasts. This will make editing much simplier. Here I've hidden everything, and zoomed in some.

Now go into Edit Mesh and select Sub-Object faces. Select and delete all the faces in the center of the nipple. Then delete all the triangles that point away from the nipple, leave the ones that point in. When it asks you to delete the isolated vertices, say yes.

Now we want to switch to Sub-Object Vertex, and move all of the vertices to the center. A good trick here is to set the Reference Coordinate System to Local instead of view. Now when you move the vertices along the XY plane, they move along the slope of the triangle, instead of up and down. Try it set both ways and you should be able to tell the difference. We are trying to line up each vertices in the center so we can well them. You may need to move them along the Z axis once they are in the center. Once they all look like they are directly on top of each other, select them all in a group and weld. If they didn't all weld, readjust the stragglers, reselect them all and weld again. Repeat for other side and you should be done!

Of course, you will probably want to texture map your top inside Poser, so we better add UVW mapping modifier. I chose cylindrical, but I had to go into the Sub-Object gizmo and rotate the mapping cylinder around to match the top.

Now you need to export your tank top to an OBJ. Make sure you UNcheck the rotate object checkbox. You do not want your work rotated. Don't forget to save your work as well!!

Fire up Poser, and import your tank top. Be sure to UNcheck every item on Poser's import dialog. If you were careful to never move your tank top inside MAX, it should load up, perfectly in place! Color and style accordingly.