Hello, everyone!

Lately, I've been receiving some questions on how to export designs and render them in Blender, and then I decided to create a tutorial on how to do it. I'm non a Blender specialist, so this won't exist an in-depth tutorial on every function of Blender, just instead a basic one more focused on the essentials for rendering your designs in an easy, good-quality style. In the futurity, I intend to create other tutorials aimed at more specific purposes.

Since I create my kits in Marvelous Designer - which does not support rendering - I had to rely on an external renderer, and Blender was a neat option: information technology's free, yet it creates great renders, it'due south somewhat easy to utilise, and, once again, it's free. haha

Even if y'all use Clo3d, you might want to attempt Blender, as, given and then right configurations, it may create improve renders than Clo3d's own renderer. Just enough with blathering, allow's get going!

1. Exporting your pattern from Marvelous Designer / Clo3d:

This start stride is very straightforward: simply go to File > Export > FBX (or OBJ, if you adopt). After that, cull a proper noun for your file, click on 'save', and an consign options screen should announced. I recommend using the settings shown in the image below, but, if you lot wish, you lot can ready the material to thick, instead of thin, and weld, instead of unweld. In almost cases, I practise not recommend creating multiple objects, every bit they become annoying to piece of work on Blender.

 

2. Importing your pattern to Blender:

Once once again, we have a very straightforward step: in Blender, go to File > Import > .FBX (or Wavefront .obj, if yous chose that export format). Your kit should be loaded into the scenes with its texture and normals already UV mapped - which is very convenient!

 

iii. Configuring your render backdrop:

Now the real work begins! To kickoff things off, allow's talk about Blender'southward render backdrop, which tin can be found on the lesser-right sidebar (as does most of the stuff nosotros'll tackle from now on).

In the 'Return Engine' setting, you lot'll notice there are three options: Workbench, Eevee and Cycles. In a very summarized explanation, Workbench is but for testing and shouldn't be used in your final render; Eevee is a more 'basic' engine that does rendering pretty fast, but with less quality; and finally, Cycles is Blender'south all-time engine in terms of quality. Considering it's a path tracing engine, information technology does lighting fashion way improve than the other 2 engines, creating more realistic images. However, this quality comes with a cost: Cycles is way more demanding on your pc, and renders take way longer to finish. Information technology should your standard engine, nonetheless, since the expect really pays off. And if y'all have a good GPU, make certain to actuate 'GPU Compute' on the 'Device' section.

In the render properties tab, y'all tin besides find other useful options. In sampling, yous can fix the number of samples of your render. The higher the number of samples, the more realistic and less noisy the render will exist. In my feel, while raising the samples to, i.eastward., 500, practice produce a better result, the added render fourth dimension isn't worth information technology. The standard 128 (or maybe 200) works just fine for me. Merely think to select, in the 'integrator' section, the option 'Branched Path Tracing', and then it can take all lights into account for shading instead of just ane.

If you plan to later add a background to your rendered image, don't forget to select the 'Transparent' checkbox, right below the Pixel Filter.

Lastly, in 'Color Management', you tin set some properties regarding the image itself. I unremarkably get for 'High dissimilarity', and you tin also play with the 'gamma' and 'exposure' options to give more/less brightness and saturation to the render.

Of course, in that location are many other options to mess around in the render properties, just I recollect this should be enough to create a good-quality render.

 

iv. Output properties:

There's nothing too complex hither. You have options to select the resolution of your image, the file format, etc. Simply select a resolution and format you think suits best your pattern, and yous're good to go - just recall that higher resolutions mean longer return times.

 

5. Camera:

By clicking on 'Photographic camera' on the Scene Collection (top-right sidebar), you are able to control the photographic camera on your scene. Y'all can move it and rotate it manually by selecting one of the two options on the left sidebar and so using the arrows (or circles, for rotating) near the camera; or you can input values on the 'Transform' box to the left of the Scene Collection.

You also take admission to the camera properties (once more, on the lesser-right sidebar). Here, you have a few options, but the most important is the focal length, which controls the angle of view—how much of the scene will be captured—and the magnification—how big individual elements will be. The longer the focal length, the narrower the angle of view and the college the magnification. The shorter the focal length, the wider the angle of view and the lower the magnification.

Tip: by clicking Numpad 0, you'll be able to see your camera view. This is great for making adjustments to the position and rotation of your camera.

 

half dozen. Lighting:

This is probably i of the nearly important (if not the well-nigh important) aspects of your render. Lighting can make or break a render, so you should pay special attending to it.

At that place are multiple means you can gear up the lighting to your scene. One method I particularly similar is the three-point lighting ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iii-point_lighting ), which involves using three light spots in different positions to better controls the shading and shadows casted on the model (thanks to Vitor for the valuable tips on how to properly set up 3PL).

To add a light, but click on 'Add' on the toolbar nigh the height-right, then select 'Light' and i the of the 4 options (usually, 'Spot'). After yous create a new light and select information technology on the Scene Collection, a 'Object Data Properties' tab will announced on the lesser-right sidebar. Here you can control things like the color and power of the low-cal. There'south no standard 'recipe' here: you should tweak with those backdrop until you detect a configuration that works well on your kit.

Another option to add lighting to your scene without the employ of lights is calculation an HDRI, which consist of using images to reproduce luminosity. To do this, you must go to the 'Globe Properties' tab, then click on color and select 'Environment Texture'. After that click on 'Open up' and select you HDRI texture. One great resource for downloading HDRIs is HDRI Haven - you'll find many slap-up HDRIs entirely free of accuse there.

 

7. Cloth backdrop :

By selecting you lot model on the Scene Collection and clicking on the material properties on the bottom-left sidebar, you lot can control the way unlike parts of your design look and react to the lighting. When you import you Md/Clo3d model to Blender, each cloth, logo, push button, topstitch, etc. volition receive its own 'fabric', and so you must tweak with the options in each component of the bailiwick of jersey. This may seem annoying at get-go, just information technology's actually quite useful, since the i.eastward. sponsor logos and the fabric of the shirt should deport differently from each other anyway.

Here are a few important properties:

A – Metallic: as the name suggest, the metallic property increases the metal attribute of your fabric. You won't use it virtually of the times, but it's quite useful if y'all want to create silver/aureate logos.

B – IOR: Index of Refraction. It describes how fast lite travels through the material. Well-nigh types of textile have a IOR of effectually i.5~1.six. I unremarkably use i.5.

C – Specular: it controls how much (dielectric specular) reflection your material creates. Y'all get a realistic Specular value, you tin can utilise the Fresnel formula: ((IOR−1)/(IOR+one))^two/0.08. For a IOR of 1.5, you get a convenient specular value of 0.v.

D – Specular tint: basically, makes the specular lights 'tinted' past the base color of your material.

E – Roughness: IMO, the near important property of all. College levels of roughness spread lights more evenly, creating a less sleeky expect. I sometimes add a custom roughness map (by clicking on the circle next to the option and selecting 'image texture', or by calculation a node on the shading tab - more info on that on Step 8), just for cloth materials, usually a roughness level of 0.7 works fine for me (of course, this can alter depending on the type of material).

F – Sheen: amount of soft velvet like reflection about edges, for simulating materials such as material. Information technology's very subtle, only useful anyway. For the fabric materials of your shirt, y'all should set it to 1.0.

G – Sheen tint: just like specular tint, it mixes the base color of your material to the reflection.

H – Alpha: information technology's the transparency of your material. Unless yous want something to await transparent, you should leave information technology at i.0.

I – Normal: the normal map of your material. If you prepare a normal map on Marvelous Designer/Clo3d, information technology should exist already there. However, you can use this property to change, add or remove a normal map if y'all want to.

I estimate these are the near of import properties for shirt rendering. If yous want to learn more about the other properties, a proficient choice is too read the Blender Documentation (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/shader/principled.html)

 

eight. The shading tab:

The shading tab is by no ways something necessary to your render, but it can be quite useful sometimes. It is essentially the same as the material properties, merely instead of presenting a listing of options, it features nodes, which are easier on the eye, and make it possible to add a few options not bachelor on the material properties (afaik). To add a node, simply press Shift + A, and then select the desired node. Some useful nodes are 'image texture' (to add together, i.due east., a specific roughness map) and 'mapping' (to conform the position, rotation and/or scale of your map).

 

9. Rendering:

After y'all're satisfied with the changes you've made to your model, the last step is, of course, to return your blueprint. You can practise it by clicking on Render > Render Paradigm on the top toolbar (or simply using the shortcut F12). After a few minutes (or several, depending on your hardware and the properties you've used), your rendered image should exist set up! Make sure to save it past clicking on Image > Salve As (or Shift + Alt + S).

 

And that's the cease of the tutorial! Similar I've said, I'm no Blender guru, so I'm deplorable for not making a more in-depth tutorial, but I hope this was useful! If you still take any questions, you can contact me via electronic mail (designsbycorinth@gmail.com) or Twitter (@DesignsCorinth).