Question about character modeling for animation!

[upstairs-day]

New to character work and I'm looking either for some advice into best practices or a recommendation for a course or something that gets into some finerdetails about character modeling for animation.

What are some best practices when it comes to finer detail in character animation model? For instance, I'm looking to add some wrinkles into clothing but am unsure if I should model the wrinkles directly into the geometry or go the route of building a displacement/normal map? Are there other techniques people use that I should look into?

Please let me know if I'm not even asking the right questions here. Thanks!

[Dr. Sassi]

HI upstair-day,

Character animation and cloth are two things that build up on each other. No cloth will work properly without a good rig and character/rig-building skills.

I see character animation as a top-level skill, as it is based on many standard and advanced animation techniques. Nothing that is just done or based on a do this, do that tutorial. In other words, take your time, and let it grow. I assume you toss that advice, but I had to say it

The primary skill is undoubtedly in directing and being an actor simultaneously. My definition of a director is that they direct the audience, only secondarily the actor or the character. I suggest taking acting classes, or at least some courses; I loved the acting classes at "Masterclass.com" to get better at it.

If you use a Motion Tracking Volume or a "Performance Capture suit", as we call it, some skills need to be acquired.

From my point of view, having natural-looking cloth on a character is a step above the character animation or acting skill set.

To answer your question, first of all, why are there wrinkles in the cloth, and how would they behave and change with the character?
Anything on a character supports expressing something to create information for the audience. This leads me to my question. To get there is not a "do this – do that" path.

If you like to use displacement for that, I would think (while answering a super general question here, without even a sketch received!) that you need to be able to connect it to the character's expression. Every wrinkle will flatten if that area is stretched. That can be done in many ways. It would fill a lot of space to explain all options; let's focus first on the next steps.

Here are two courses for the very first basics of character animation:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMeO87vDgOoNAIESE1YfgbUmKzxsg_e-9

The series is
Intro to Rigging in C4D: Part 1 - 6 Fundamentals of Rigging
and
ZBrush Character Creation, Cinema 4D, Redshift 3D 1-6

As a side note:
Since you already have a very defined idea, so far, I can tell; The easiest way to get into Cloth Simulation is to use tools that are 100% specialized in this. Please explore this, as it will give you many ideas and perhaps some answers.
https://marvelousdesigner.com/product/overview

All the best