Check out technical details of Marvelous Designer – the leading 3D cloth simulation software.

3D cloth simulation is one of the most challenging and technically advanced module of the 3D production pipeline. Having said so, 3D clothes are widely used in leading Hollywood CGI movies and games. Marvelous Designer is the leading software in the niche market.

We interviewed Jane Han, APAC Marketing manager from Marvelous Designer team. Following are the extracts of it.

Hi Jane, Welcome abroad. What was the need to create ‘Marvelous Designer’?

The core solution of Marvelous Designer is the fastest and most accurate 3D cloth simulator that we have had. With this strong simulation engine, we expected to lessen the time and effort for cloth modeling that most modelers are struggling with. Because sometimes modelers have to deal with the hassle of sculpting wrinkles, Marvelous Designer take this hassle out of their pipeline, making the cloth modeling process much faster and easier.

Kindly explain pattern based approach of Marvelous Designer.

Draw patterns, arrange and sew them, and simulate.

This is the basic process of creating 3D cloth simulation in Marvelous Designer which remains the same for all clothing, regardless of how complicated your pattern is. By adjusting physical properties, you can also create unique fabric characteristics and apply them differently to each pattern.

What were the technical challenges faced during creation of Marvelous Designer and how they got solved?

A lot of people would like to get into Marvelous Designer, but might find out that 2D pattern creation is not easy to learn. To solve it, we have developed and added features that allows you to set up clothing in Marvelous Designer with the ease of use. For instance, 3D Sewing updated in version 8 enables you to sew patterns by clicking the edge of patterns in 3D window and to easily find the matching edges. This new feature of Marvelous Designer 8 will greatly help the production pipeline of Gaming and CGI pipeline. 

We aim it to make the best 3D cloth simulation software. So, during the process, we also suggest to look up pattern blueprints of clothing that you would like to create. It helps you to draw patterns in simple manner and easily even though you don’t have any professional knowledge about pattern making.

What are USPs of Marvelous Designer?

Intuitive interface and quick simulation are main strengths of Marvelous Designer. All features start with these two factors which allows you to speed up the cloth modeling process with high-quality results.

• Flattening: Extract patterns based on lines and shapes created on an Avatar.
• GoZ: GoZ allows direct import/export of Object between ZBrush and Marvelous Designer.
• Modular Mode: Combine or swap out ready-made Block Components to create designs with speed and flexibility.
• UV Editor: A mode where editing UV of Garment.
• Remeshing: Generates aligned automatic Retopology results.
• 3D Sewing: Sew Patterns intuitively in 3D window.
• Trace Patterns with UV Map: Extract 2D patterns automatically from UV map when importing 3D objects in Marvelous Designer.

How you achieve intricate details such as elastic, stretch, sleeves, scarves, multilayering and many others so seamlessly?

Creating realistic 3D clothing is the main focus of Marvelous Designer. All physical properties has been tested by our researchers through multiple examinations to compare the simulated results to the actual results in real life.

How Marvelous Designer lead the way as 3D cloth simulation software?

There are developers who research 3D cloth simulator and fashion designers who are familiar with the process of pattern creation. All of them are involved in the product development to enhance Marvelous Designer by reflecting users’ feedback in the best possible way. Just because making realistic 3D clothing is our main focus doesn’t mean all users want to make realistic clothes at all time. Therefore, we’re trying to collect honest feedback from users and closely work together to develop Marvelous Designer in very user friendly way.

Let us know about various features of ‘MD Store’. Can a Marvelous Designer artist sell his/her 3D clothes through MD Store?

At this moment, MD store is not an open platform. It only allows to purchase clothes from the store whereas it is not possible for users to sell clothes on the platform. Although there are not many functions in the store for now, we are planning to launch the brand new MD store in the near future. Lots of free items are available in MD store so those who are not familiar with pattern making can get some basic patterns from the store, modify and use them. 

How many softwares do you support? Also explain production pipeline of import-export.

Marvelous Designer supports the commonly used 3D file formats such as OBJ, FBX, Alembic, MC and PC2 etc. that are compatible with other 3D softwares. We also have plug-in to provide a direct connection between another 3D software like GoZ, and are preparing for the integration with Substance as well.

Please showcase briefly your production credentials.

Weta Digital was the first user of Marvelous Designer. They used Marvelous Designer while working on The Adventures of Tintin. Starting with this case, more and more gaming and VFX studios have been adding Marvelous Designer to their production pipeline. Recently Marvelous Designer is used a lot in the gaming industry including EA, Rockstar games, Crytek, and Digic Pictures etc.

Don’t forget to check out amazing case studies from leading Animation, VFX and Gaming studios, regarding how they use Marvelous Designer in their production pipeline. 

What are future goals of Marvelous Designer?

The goal of Marvelous Designer is to become the must-use tool to make digital clothing. This is why Marvelous Designer has been updated in more intuitive and flexible way.