Once my animation was finalized, I moved on to simulating clothes in Marvelous Designer. This stage was something I had been preparing for throughout the project, and I knew it was going to be a meticulous and time-consuming process. Every shot needed to be prepared carefully, starting with placing the character in a proper A-pose at the beginning. This was crucial because if the clothes didn’t fit correctly from the start, the simulation would behave unpredictably. After setting up the A-pose, I baked the animation and exported Alembic caches so I could start simulating the cloth over the animated movements.
The simulation process was extremely detailed and required a lot of back-and-forth between Maya and Marvelous Designer. Any slight collision between the hands or arms and the clothing could cause the fabric to stretch, stick, or clip unnaturally. This meant that for almost every shot, I had to watch the simulation carefully, note any errors, go back into Maya to tweak the animation slightly, and then return to Marvelous Designer to run the simulation again. It was a tedious and repetitive process, but it was necessary to achieve a realistic and natural movement of the garments.
Some shots were even more challenging because the characters moved quickly, which caused the cloth to break or behave unrealistically. To solve this, I first simulated the clothes on top of the character’s normal movement without moving the master control, which allowed the cloth to settle properly. Once the simulation looked correct, I imported the Alembic cache back into Maya and used the match transformation option to align the clothes with the character’s master control. This added another layer of precision and ensured that the garments stayed consistent across every shot.
Even though it was exhausting, seeing the clothes move naturally with the characters was extremely satisfying. Each successful simulation felt like a small victory, and it made me realize how important it is to combine careful animation planning with simulation techniques. This stage not only added realism to my characters but also pushed me to think critically about timing, collisions, and how subtle details can make or break the final look of the scene. Overall, simulating clothes in Marvelous Designer was a challenging yet rewarding part of the pipeline, and it taught me a lot about patience, iteration, and problem-solving in 3D animation workflows.cter.