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Marvelous Designer is a stand-alone package that allows the user to design and physically simulate 3D virtual clothing. It is developed by CLO Virtual Fashion, headquartered in Seoul, Korea. The first official release of a CLO Virtual Fashion software took place back in 2009 and was named CLO3D. Despite its initial instability and the lack of basic features, such as Undo, it had already convinced early adopters that saw the potential of the toolset.
Today CLO3D is used by the fashion/apparel industry, while Marvelous Designer (MD) is used in film and VFX (Weta digital – the Hobbit), games (EA, Ubisoft, Konami), and architectural previz. The developer has quickly built a growing community around its software and has kept releasing improved versions, year after year.
The features introduced in Marvelous Designer 5 aim to simplify and streamline its workflow. Does it deliver on the promise? Let’s find out.
Just like its predecessors, MD5 is using a pattern-based approach. The user gets to navigate between a 2D and a 3D view. The 2D view is used to design, cut, edit and shape 2D patterns. You can create and edit predefined geometrical shapes such as rectangles and circles, or any other user-defined polygon shape. In addition, it provides interfaces to move points and segments manually, or through input value. The 3D view is used to simulate the garments using physically accurate rules. You can push and pull in the 3D view and see the draping in real time. You can also dynamically edit the pattern in the 2D view and see the results right away in the 3D view.
The simulation result also depends on the type of materials assigned to your patterns. You can use presets such as cotton, denim, and leather, that are already setup using physically correct properties, or you can go in and edit the physical properties of those presets to get the exact look you have in mind.
Of course, most of the time, you will need an avatar to drape your garments around. Basic avatars are provided in the package but you can of course import an avatar of your own.
Physical simulations can get really heavy and slow. To address this issue, Marvelous designer implemented, in the early releases, the concept of particle density. You can start your simulation with a low value of particles (such as 20), and then slowly build your way up to the finest values (such as 3 or 4). The lower the value, the fastest the simulation, the higher, the slower, but also the more precise.
Marvelous Designer 5 announced a whole bunch of new features that we will go through shortly. Some of them are worth considering in the context of MD4 and MD4.5 new features. Among the features of those versions, one can find: Quandrangulate (to turn those triangle meshes into quads – more on that later), tacking patterns together or on avatar, 1 to N segment sewing, and piping of the seams. More importantly, symmetrical paste, editing and merging, and normal flipping. Those 2 features are for me the most significant and they will come into play when evaluating the features of version 5.
Symmetrical paste, edit and merge was in my opinion one of the biggest improvements since the addition of the undo. Before that, when you would change one piece of a garment, you pretty much had to manually do the same change to the other « theoretically » symmetrical side. That feature now enables the user to edit one piece, while propagating automatically those changes to the other side. I know it seems quite basic, but it is such a productivity boost.
The other important addition was the normal flipping. Before then, it was a bit tedious to both see the direction of the normals of a cloth panel and flip it whenever facing the wrong direction. With MD4, users were now able to flip panels in a single click, which helps tremendously give thickness or linings to your garments.
The features of MD5 are one more step towards simplifying the workflow. The intent is to make the creation process easier, faster and more streamlined.
The developer strikes hard with this long awaited feature. In previous releases, changing your mind on your design late in the process was extremely tedious. If you wanted to split a pattern, you pretty much had to redo it from the start, but this time in pieces. This is now a problem of the past. This tool lets you split any pattern with an internal line. It is as simple as drawing the line, right clicking and hit « cut ». This is extremely useful for designing the overall look and silhouette of a garment before refining the shape, like adding extra stitching. You can of course select multiple lines at the same time. Simple. Efficient. A nice addition to that feature is the “cut and sew” mode: it enables you to split and then stitch the two pieces together at once.
However, the whole thing is not without minor flaws. If your patterns were set as symmetrical, then cutting on one end will delete the symmetry. It will not replicate the cut on the other side. It is unfortunate, but it is not that bad: the newly created parts can be mirrored in symmetry again after the split and you are back with dynamic symmetries. The feature is powerful indeed but can get buggy at times especially the “cut and sew” mode. I got myself cornered with some panels that were cut and sewed together without the ability to select or edit the sewing. It completely disappeared from the list of sewing and I could not click on it ever again. Only restarting the software fixed the problem. If this is confirmed as a bug, let’s hope it will be patched in an update.
The other major feature of this new release is trace. Trace is a new function with its own button in the toolbar. Draw a few internal lines, select them, and click on the trace button (shortcut I). Right click on the lines to create a pattern corresponding to the intersection of those lines. You can do the opposite and create an internal line from the outline of a pattern. This is extremely powerful when you want complex patterns and lines that match 1 to 1 so you can stitch them together.
The padding of the motorcycle jacket on the image was done within minutes using this technique (also combined with the power of the layers). This feature is particularly convincing to me.
Often times, you will want to draw internal lines. You will want them with a clean offset from the border in a uniform fashion. In previous releases you would have to do this manually. This too, is also a problem of the past. Clicking on « offset as internal line » now gives you a contextual menu to enter a distance value. Within a split second you get a clean internal line as if you had done an inset in 3DS Max (or any equivalent 3D package). Let’s also notice that of course, you can reverse the direction of the offset if you need to.
Here is a more subtle, yet valuable, detail to speed up your workflow. You can now position shapes and objects onto a surface (garment or avatar) within a click. The developer enriched their gizmo with a small target icon. Clicking on it then on the surface snaps the object wherever you want, including on the surface of an avatar. Click on the surface again to confirm the move. Undo works well in this context too.
If you have ever tried to make a shirt or a jacket with a collar and cuffs, you know the pain. This feature tries to fix it at once. You first need to draw an internal line, just like you would in previous versions. But now here is the beauty: the fold arrangement tool lets you select that line and then gives you a gizmo to pick the direction in which you want to fold the panel. Simply rotate the gizmo and your panel is folded already. Do not be scared to screw up the simulation. The folding works before the simulation is activated. More on this very nice feature in a few moments.
This is nothing more than a new option for the sewing lines. Changing the type from “Flat” to “Turned” will give you a different look that will look more folded.
Being able to add thickness to a garment is a no-brainer. Marvelous Designer proposed the user to enable thickness at export for a while. But this was no better than adding a shell in 3DS Max (or any equivalent 3D package). This is where the developer proposes the user with a better option: curved side geometry. Again, combined with the other features it gets extremely powerful. In the example on the image I have tried to create a shirt collar.
Step 1: turn the collar (using fold
arrangement).
Step 2: duplicate the collar, flip the normal and sew the
two collars together using the turned sewing.
Step 3: setup the curved side geometry.
Done! Faster than ever!
That is a most modest addition in terms of complexity, but still appreciated. You can now select a bunch of points in the 2D view, right click, and then align them on the X or Y axis. One could bet that this could lead us to interesting new modes for point manipulation in the upcoming versions.
In the previous versions, if you wanted to round off corners of a pattern you pretty much had to eyeball it. The developer added a new tool in the 2D Toolbar to round corners off. Technically, this turns any point into curve points and then interpolates the outline to create a curved chamfer. Drag more for a broad chamfer, or less for a narrow one. It works equally well on an outline than an internal line. This is something you do a lot in production. As a consequence it is as much of time-saver as a nice way to get a clean corner.
One feature of MD that is often overlooked is the perfect UVs it produces. It makes a huge difference in a production pipeline. In previous versions, the developer introduced the « Unified UV coordinates » at export. This made your UV clusters match the 2D pattern layout while fitting in a 0..1 UV space. There was no significant improvement to this feature until today. MD5 now gives you more control over how you want your UVs to be after export. You can drag a rectangle in 2D space that will represent your 0..1 UV space. This is exactly what you will get after export in the 3D package of your choice. You still need to activate the « Unified UV coordinates » at export though.
The avatar gets its piece of the pie, too. I am actually surprised it took so long to the developer to add a measuring tool. It is now integrated in MD5 and you can take measures just like a professional tailor. A specific toolbar has been designed for this, with 3 distinct modes: The first one (basic tape) will take linear measures, which is perfect for measuring the length of a pair of jeans legs. The second one (basic circumference) will wrap around a surface, just like a slice, which is perfect for measuring the circumference of a chest or a waist line. The 3rd button is to edit the measures taken. This one is so poorly designed that I failed to simply get anything out of it. Another sad thing is that for some odd reason the toolbar is not active by default. You will need to right click on the 3D toolbar to activate it.
But there is more to the avatar upgrade. If you ever wanted to deactivate the avatar collision in previous versions you know how painful that was. You pretty much had to load another « empty » avatar to trick the tool into avoiding avatar collision. MD5 fixes the problem by introducing a collision detection toggle on the avatar. You can also hide avatars individually if you loaded multiple ones. However the design is not very elegant when combined with the show/hide avatar shortcut (shift+A). Both systems conflict with each other and it could lead to some confusion from time to time.
This one is a very small upgrade. If, like me, you sometimes ended up rotating a pattern while initially intending to move it (or vice versa), you probably got a bit frustrated. By default the new gizmo is still in unified mode. But hitting shortcuts will now get you to specific behaviors: Q for select, W for move, E for rotate. Not mind-blowing but helpful.
The developer promised a 30% speed update in simulation mode. I have no reason to doubt their numbers but I can only confirm the simulation is slightly faster. By how much precisely is difficult to say. But any improvement is always very welcome. As I use the PC version, I cannot confirm the 70% of simulation speed on the Mac version.
On a side note, I did not take a full paragraph to describe some other minor but still meaningful features such as the eyedropper, the LXO export for Modo, or the fact that you can now save your simulation options within your project file. This doesn’t mean they are not great, but they are pretty much self-explanatory.
Overall it feels like those new features combined together give you a significant productivity boost. The leather jacket example on the image is striking. It was done completely under an hour. I roughly estimate that the new functionality improved my efficiency and speed by about 30-40%.
MD5 gives us a ton of stuff already. But artists can never stop asking for more, can they? I was really expecting some more improvements that were not part of this new release. Amongst those few regrets, I could name:
Quadrangulate is still really below expectations. Compared to other plugins built into more traditional modeling packages (like Maya NCloth, to name only one) the topology it produces is mediocre at best. This feature merely turns two triangles into a quad, and as a consequence, the flow of the edges is not good enough. It does subdivide a bit better (than ZBrush for instance), but falls way below expectations as far as I am concerned.
Avatars are missing something really nice too: I wish avatars could better mimic the behavior of skin and be slightly deformed by the simulation. For instance, I wish you could tie a belt so tight around the waist that the skin would get pushed in a bit. If you have tried creating a chubby or overweight character in MD you probably know what I mean: You have to sculpt your avatar to fake the guts hanging lose over a tighter waist line. As a side note, it is also probably the right time to mention the built in avatar are still super ugly and stiff in their posing. In my opinion they are pretty much useless in their current shape.
Next in the list is an old favorite of mine: the “synchronize” button. In previous versions, you could desynchronize the 2 views if you wanted to put the simulation on hold while you did some changes in the 2D view. It was very handy. The button seems gone, and the synchronization between the 2 views is always on. Did the developer remove the feature or is it hidden somewhere? Did they judge it no longer relevant? In both cases I think it is a shame.
Last but not least, a few words about the pricing. Perpetual personal license is $550. Subscription is $360 per year, $60 per month. In my humble opinion this is a bit too high. Enterprise licenses are quite expensive, too. Upgrades don’t come free of charge. Upgrading price is usually 50% of full price of the following version. Skipping a versions leaves you with no other choice than full price on the following one. I know MD is an amazing program that requires a lot of skills and hard work to ship and maintain, but it is still quite specialized. Individuals and businesses have a lot of other programs to acquire and I think few will afford upgrading to every new version of MD.
This new release of Marvelous Designer is definitely a major one. The focus has clearly been put on optimizing your workflow and making it a lot more efficient. It is faster than ever to get to a point where you consider your garments as good as done. The most tedious tasks have been made a lot easier: cutting, offsetting as internal lines, fold arrangement, trace, round corners, to only name a few. The improved speed of simulation is a great addition, too. Not only those new features are great by themselves, but they also add so much to versions 4 and 4.5 improvements that the package feels more mature than ever. It is a bit overpriced, and there are still improvements to be made in the future, but if you can afford the upgrade, I strongly recommend this version.
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