EP08 — Clothing Dummy Mesh (DCC Preparation)

1. Why Do We Need a Clothing Dummy?

• When a dress is split into top + skirt, having to skin each piece separately is tedious.
• Like the body dummy in ep05, create a unified clothing dummy to handle weights all at once, then distribute to the individual meshes.

What you can leave as-is (examples):
- Sleeve mesh (can be worked separately)
- Stockings — just follow the body
- Shoes — standalone or linked to body

What needs to be merged (examples):
- Dress top + skirt mesh → one dummy

2. DCC Work (3ds Max Example)

2-1. Copy and Edit

1. Copy the top mesh (e.g., inner clothes).
2. Move edges / Extrude to match the skirt length — adjust to your rig.

2-2. Naming and Isolate

• Example name: Dummy_Clothes.
• Use Isolate during work to show only the dummy.

2-3. Check for Duplicate Vertices

• Make sure there are no accidentally doubled vertices at the same position.

2-4. Match the Silhouette

• Align the seam between top and skirt, and Relax if needed.
• Perfection isn't required — Transfer Weights works well as long as the silhouette is roughly the same as the real clothing mesh.

3. Connecting to SkinLayer Studio (Preview — ep09)

4. Checklist

• [ ] Identify clothing meshes to merge (dress vs. independent parts)
• [ ] Finish Dummy_Clothes shape in DCC + Weld/Seam
• [ ] Confirm no duplicate vertices
• [ ] (Next episode) Add Skin + assign bones to each clothing mesh → ep09

This episode covers DCC preprocessing — SLS UI work continues from ep09.