Clothing meshes on deformable characters

EddyNeave

Hey, I see this question a fair amount but everything i've tried hasn't worked. I have a base character which uses mesh deformations for bending and some physics constraint mesh deformations. I'm now trying to add customisable clothing but I can't match the meshes no matter what I try.

Here's some ideas of what needs to be achieved and the issues i'm facing
The types of clothing I need aren't going to always fill the body part, for example I have Torso, Thigh, Shin body parts and if I add trousers it will only partially cover the torso and shin but fully cover the thigh.

Clothing sprites aren't the same size, 2 trousers may be different widths and heights or may cover different body parts (such as quarter length trousers or shorts)

I've already attempted copy and pasting weights but because the images are different sizes and meshes aren't exactly the same it doesn't work.

I have tried both overlay (full clothing item in a single image) and separated (shorts being separated for torso, thigh_R and thigh_L) with no luck

Does anyone know of a way to achieve this?

Misaki

EddyNeave While Spinebot's response is partially valid, there are two main approaches to consider.
The first method involves aligning the image sizes of each part to make it easier to align the mesh vertices. Note that this only aligns the image sizes, which may result in large margins in some cases. However, when packing textures, these margins can be removed along the mesh hull, so even if there are large margins in the images when imported into Spine, it should not be a problem. Therefore, this method can be more efficient in some cases, as you can set up the mesh and weights for one part, duplicate it, and replace the image path to change the appearance to another image, thereby reducing the time needed to set up the mesh and weights.
Another option is to proceed as you are currently doing, with images of varying sizes. While this eliminates the initial step of standardizing image sizes, it often results in the challenge of aligning meshes and weights, as you are currently experiencing.

Note that using the “Weld” feature added in Spine 4.2 is simpler than copying and pasting weights. If you are not yet using this feature, please refer to the following video for instructions:

It seems that you have already researched this case to some extent and are still having trouble. If you have tried the above advice and it still does not work, please send us your current Spine project via email so that we can provide more specific advice : contact@esotericsoftware.com

Spinebot

To achieve customizable clothing on deformable characters in Spine, you can use a combination of techniques to ensure that the clothing meshes match the body meshes. Here are some steps and tips that might help:

Duplicate and Adjust Meshes: Start by duplicating the base body mesh and adjust it to fit the clothing. This ensures that the vertices and weights are initially aligned. You can then modify the mesh to fit the clothing shape.
Use Wireframe Mode: When creating a new mesh for clothing, use the wireframe mode to see the underlying body mesh. This helps in aligning the vertices of the clothing mesh with the body mesh, ensuring that they deform similarly.
Match Vertices and Weights: Ensure that the vertices on overlapping parts of the body and clothing meshes are placed as closely as possible and have matching weights. This is crucial for consistent deformation.
Transform Constraints: For clothing that doesn't fully cover a body part, consider using transform constraints to adjust the bones slightly, allowing for better alignment and deformation of the clothing mesh.
Skin Constraints: Use skin constraints to manage different clothing items. This allows you to apply specific constraints only when a particular skin (clothing item) is active.
Linked Meshes: If possible, use linked meshes for parts of the clothing that can share the same deformation as the body. This is useful when the clothing and body parts are similar in shape and size.

By carefully aligning the vertices and weights, and using the appropriate constraints, you can achieve a seamless integration of clothing meshes with deformable characters.

EddyNeave

Misaki Thanks a lot for the repose. I hadn't yet tried standardising image sizes mainly due to doing the artwork using Inkscape and i'm not familiar with a way to export to a standard size over multiple exports with it. I have since created invisible rectangles behind each part to get the size I want and that has made aligning meshes far easier

I'm exporting to Game Maker unfortunately so i'm locked on version 4.0 but i'll keep that in mind if the runtime is ever updates over there.

I had tried the weld feature before I realised I couldn't export from the latest to 4.0 and it didn't go as i'd like due to the number of bones in the clothed areas.

Thanks to your comment i've made progress so thank you very much for the assistance.