Today was the first International 3D Synod put on by the Nordic and German chapters of the IACDE. We had fascinating presentations from The Fabricant, an amazing digital design house, and from Sophie-Therese Lupas, one of the principals at Studio Lupas, and then breakout sessions where the assignments we had been given to complete were presented.
The thing that was most exciting to me was that Browzwear and Alvanon were making their software, training program and avatars free to attendees in order to complete the assignment of turning either a men’s or ladies’ outerwear jacket pattern into a 3D rendering, using digital fabric, all provided by IACDE. It was fascinating for me to try the same pattern and same fabric on Clo3D, Accumark 3D, and Browzwear, and even more interesting to see how other participants, of which there were over 70, also interpreted the assignment. In the breakout rooms we were given an opportunity to discuss our projects and ask questions of the other participants so I definitely learned a few very useful things!
I also took the opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone and do things I would not normally do. Below is my submission, and I will post tutorials on how I did a few of the things highlighted.
I used the rectangle lights as softboxes and strip lights, the same as I would do in my photography studio, to highlight the edges of the garment at the sleeves and the side underarm, to create separation between the dark garment and the dark background, a technique known as rim lighting. I also used the equivalent of a hair light for the hood. The rim lighting effect particularly enhances the IACDE logo on the sleeve which I created using a displacement map.
I also created eyelet buttonholes for the draw cord at the waist using a graphic I created in Adobe Illustrator and then created a displacement map to give them some volume. The snaps and cord stoppers I modeled in Blender, and then textured in Substance Painter. I struggled with some aspects of this process and still haven’t figured out what was causing some of the texturing issues I was having, though I am fairly certain it has to do with the mesh topology. I am still very new to this and learning.
I should have brightened up the back of the coat more, and increase the rim lighting on the right side.
You can see some issues with the letters C and D that didn’t show up in Substance Painter but only did when I brought the files back in to Clo. There were also issues around the openings for the cord but they are not so obvious in this photo. I also should have defined materials better in Blender before exporting them- though Substance allows great control when texturing the different parts of the object so you can apply different materials and effects to different ports, once you get into Clo3D it only recognizes distinct materials as they were defined in Blender. I had only created two materials in Blender- for the logo and the stopper- so when I got back to Clo I lost the distinction between the cord, the stopper and the puller tab. I’ll know better next time.
I also did a bit of processing, post-render. Though you can apply camera effects such as depth-of-field in Clo3D, I prefer to render everything sharp and then add things like bokeh afterwards in photoshop to give the image more of the realistic look. Doing it after gives me more control over what I choose to have in sharp focus and what gets a bit blurred as it might in a photo.
Wow