jeremy
d1030def4e
Two pieces of work.
1. Keep milestones, not steps. Staged NN_*.py lanes were saving a full
~80 MB .blend per attempt, so Lena's lane reached 3.0 GB of which 2.2 GB
was 30 .blend files -- five snapshots to land one crotch fix, five more
for the bra. The .py recipes are the real history; the blends are cache.
- .agents/rules/working-files.md: four-tier policy (KEEP / MASTER /
SCRATCH / UNKNOWN) + how to work a lane.
- tools/prune_lane.py: classifies a lane and prunes the scratch tier.
Dry-run by default. Reads a per-lane .lanekeep manifest, flags
binaries byte-identical to a registered original (canonical name
always survives a duplicate pair), and never auto-deletes a .blend
with no step script beside it -- those cannot be rebuilt.
- .gitignore: scratch patterns can never be committed.
Dry run on characters/female/lena_nude reports 2.3 GB reclaimable.
Not applied -- that lane had a live Blender session at the time.
2. .humans/marvelous-designer.html: how we author garments in Marvelous
Designer, written for people rather than agents -- the six-step process,
what has been made, the traps that cost hours, and what is still
unsolved. Matches the .humans/ HTML convention in ariki-game.
Also committing the docs the AGENTS.md knowledge map and the new page
reference, so they are not dangling: the clothing-lane architecture page,
the marvelous-designer skill, and the two screenshots the page embeds.
characters/ is deliberately untracked and stays that way -- it holds GBs of
blends and GLBs, and .gitattributes does not LFS-track .blend.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
118 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
118 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
# Clothing lane — reference image → garment worn in-game
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The animation lane carries **motion** to ariki-game; this is the parallel lane
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that carries **clothing**. Both converge on the same 65-bone Quaternius
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skeleton. Built 2026-07-30 in two halves, by two sessions, that meet at a
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garment mesh.
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```
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reference photo ──▶ [ UPSTREAM: Marvelous Designer ] ──▶ garment mesh (FBX/OBJ)
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or concept author · drape on game body 1–4k verts, fitted
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texture · QC placement + .zprj source
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│
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▼
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[ DOWNSTREAM: clothing/garment_pipeline.py ]
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census · prepare · fit · reduce · (bake) · skin · export
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│
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▼
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ariki-game/assets/quaternius/outfits/<set>/
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per-slot GLB on the shared skeleton
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+ OutfitCatalog.Register entry
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```
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## The two halves
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| | Upstream — authoring | Downstream — game-ification |
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|---|---|---|
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| Question it answers | "What is this garment, and what shape is it on *our* body?" | "How does the game wear it?" |
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| Tool | Marvelous Designer 2026 + `TinqsMDBridge` socket plugin | Headless Blender 5.1, deterministic, staged |
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| Lives in | `tools/md_bridge*`, `tools/tailor/` | `clothing/` |
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| Playbook | `.claude/skills/marvelous-designer/SKILL.md` | `clothing/README.md` |
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| Driven by | Agent over a socket; **needs a human click** per session, freezes MD's UI | Agent, fully headless, no human in the loop |
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| Output | Draped garment mesh + `.zprj` + QC screenshot | Per-slot skinned GLB + catalog entry |
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Read each half's own doc for operating detail — this page only owns **how they
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fit together**. (Repo SoT rule: no second source of truth.)
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## The handoff contract
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Upstream hands downstream a **garment mesh in `tools/tailor/`**
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(`lena_<garment>_v<N>_garment.fbx|.obj`) plus the `.zprj` it came from.
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Downstream consumes it via a per-garment config
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(`clothing/configs/<garment>.json`) naming the source file, island→part mapping,
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slots, and budgets — new garment = new config, not new code.
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Two properties of **MD-authored** meshes change how the downstream config should
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be written, and the pilot config does not yet reflect them:
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- **Already at game budget.** MD-authored garments export at **1.2k–3.7k verts**.
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The pilot config was written against a *downloaded* MD dress at **2.49 M verts
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/ 110 MB**, where `reduce` is the hard stage. For our own garments, set a
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generous tri budget and only decimate if the test bed complains.
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- **Already fitted.** They were draped on `Ariki_Female_QuatSkin.glb` itself, so
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alignment/scale work is largely moot; the `fit` stage still earns its keep for
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the +4 mm clearance shell that prevents poke-through.
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The `clothing/README.md` independently reached the same conclusion from research:
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prefer re-exporting from MD over fighting reduction downstream. Our upstream
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makes that the default rather than the exception.
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## Why this shape
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- **Why MD for authoring:** it is the only tool in the stack that turns flat
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panels into cloth physically draped on *our* body. Garments come out
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pre-fitted, low-poly, and reproducible from a `.zprj`.
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- **Why not Character Creator:** the CC5/Reallusion clothing lane was
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investigated and **rejected** — CC5 provably refuses clothing tools on AccuRig
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"Humanoid" characters (verified via its Python API *and* GUI). See
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`clothing/README.md`.
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- **Why not MD's own EveryWear** (its auto retopo/rig/GLB toolkit, which would in
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principle replace the whole downstream half): it is **GUI-only, absent from the
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scripting API**, so it cannot be driven agentically. Revisit only if
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Reallusion/CLO exposes it.
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- **Why the halves are separate processes:** MD can't run headless and freezes
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during a bridge session; Blender can and doesn't. Splitting keeps everything
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after the garment mesh fully automatable.
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## Body and rig facts
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- Target body: `ariki-game/assets/quaternius/derived-bodies/Ariki_Female_QuatSkin.glb`
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(32.7k verts, 65 bones, 1.777 m).
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- MD needs it as **FBX**: `tools/tailor/avatar/Lena_QuatSkin_Avatar.fbx`
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(leaf bones stripped, stray meshes dropped) — regenerate with the converter
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described in the marvelous-designer skill.
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- Measurements: `tools/tailor/lena_measurements.json` — she is stylized
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(108-67-109 cm, 72 cm thighs, 178 cm), so standard size charts don't fit.
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- The skeleton is the same hub the animation lane targets — see `../ARCHITECTURE.md`.
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## Status (2026-07-31)
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**Proven upstream:** image → decomposition → drafted panels → sewn → draped →
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textured → QC'd → exported, end to end. Shipped: tee, A-line skirt, and a kapa
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haka set (tāniko pari + piupiu) matched to a reference photo, all with repo
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screenshots in `tools/tailor/screenshots/`.
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**Proven downstream:** the dress pilot ran through to an in-game render
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(`clothing/dress_ingame_2026-07-30.png`).
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**The seam is CROSSED (2026-07-31).** The kapa haka set — MD-authored on our own
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body — went through `garment_pipeline.py` (`configs/pari.json`,
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`configs/piupiu.json`) to `Female_Kapahaka_{Body,Legs}.gltf`, and both render on
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Lena in the game's clothing test bed with the tāniko pattern and piupiu stripes
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intact. None of the feared surprises materialised: MD's material naming, island
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splitting, and UV/texture carry-through all worked first time. The predictions on
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MD-authored meshes above held — both garments arrived at game budget already
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(4k/8k tri ceilings never bit) and needed no alignment work beyond a z-nudge.
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**What the in-game pass exposed instead** was pose-dependent, not authoring:
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the bodice neckline opens over the sternum and the piupiu lets a thigh through
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once the skeleton leaves the rest pose. Both are invisible to the pipeline's own
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QA, which only ever renders the **rest pose** — the pose the garment was fitted
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in, i.e. the one pose that cannot fail. Judging cloth in motion is the test bed's
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job, and until 2026-07-31 the bed could not do it either (its Idle/Walk/Dance
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buttons were overridden by the AnimationTree; fixed in `ClothingTestBed.PlayClip`).
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**Known gaps:** trousers/shorts don't drape (see the skill's failure catalogue);
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placement QC's pixel classifier is crude; no skirt bones, so deep leg swings
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compress hems; garments are flat-coloured until textures are authored.
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