Documentation

TECHXTILE — VIRTUAL FASHION
DOCUMENTATION

Resit by Melissa Yanell van der Ree
14 June — 24 June 2021
Willem de Kooning, Graphic Design

The first three days I studied in CLO3D and I got really excited about the potential of CLO3D. As a graphic designer with little experience in 3D programs is this in particular the ability to turn virtual designs into real world patterns that can be cut and sew, in a such understandable workspace. I think this is bizarre, as the ability to draft 2D patterns by modeling on a simulated 3D mannequin strikes me as game-changing, and this potentially saves an enormous amount of work

I have never drafted patterns on the computer, so I just expose by myself to a solid day of video watching and let my head absorb the process and all the tool types learning, like basic garment construction and 2D drafting tools. And of course the first sewing part didn't went in the way how I had it in my mind, because the clothes fell off the body on the first rendering immediately

From there I started reframing: what went well and what didn't? I noticed that the shoulder straps had to be closer to the neck, so I just re-sized the draft a little smaller and after that it stayed on the body. Also the soft and gentle movements of the fabric got my attention and interest

When I understood the constructions designing a dress was the first idea that came up in my mind, because a long dress made me curious about how the movement of the fabric will fall. So I designed a ball gown dress and added graphics to the fabric. I designed the gradient color beforehand in Illustrator and played with the composition but I just want it to keep it random. To understand the pattern I numbered the front and the back. Number one is the front of the dress and number two the back

During the render part there was een special moment what I wanted to freeze for a second. The way in which new forms arise are very interesting to me. The funny thing about this is that a fashion designer will see this as a mistake or error, but I see it as new insights and ways to use this footage

With my first design in CLO3D, it was now time to test it in Studio Lens. With the camera called 3D body tracking you can basically pin every design on your body where you want it

I added later the selfmade color and an extra material called destruction. In a way it got interesting but it did blur my design, which made the soft colors disappear even more. I want to give a second change but with bright colors. In general I think my first ar filter works quite well, better than I expected

Here I explore metallic as material and by making movement the material advances even better. The colors in combination with this material works very well and looks powerful. Only bright colors stand out best in conjunction with the metallic material, pastel colors disappear

While I was rendering multiple times how the poncho will fall on the mannequin, it felt off the shoulders and slumped to the hips. Not what I expected during the render part. Especially love the way how it felt so softly down to the underbody and it is a great alternative as third design that I will definitely continue working on

The second design is a unisex poncho and here I am focussing on new materials what is not possible to wear in the physical world, like 100% plastic. In the physical world everyone will turn this material down cause it is not sustainable, in digital world this problem does not apply and it is a very interesting material to research and to use it on clothes. Like the idea of doing the opposite what the physical world is doing

Next material research is chrome, which you can barely see the difference with the metallic material. But there is small difference, when you zoom in on this material, it often consists of many dots

Research the movement of textile.

During this process I found out that movement in textiles makes me very enthusiastic. My digital work processes have often been somewhat static and this is a whole new way of working and discovering to bring my ideas to life

As third design I created basic pants and new gradient color. Somehow it went multiple times wrong at the crotch of the pants, so I had to follow some tutorials to understand the sewing part. Later on I added a new material glass, but I see almost no difference with the plastic material. In my opinion the only difference what is possible the see is that the plastic material is more shiny than the glass material

Here I started to focus on the texture and I designed my first texture in program 3DCOAT to bring my further idea to reality. I wanted to give my pants an extra 3D texture and depth, and chose the snakes movement/pattern. It helped me a lot to bring more depth and playness into the pants through collab my work with another 3D program

I started developing my own texture in Photoshop in a more simple way by using normal maps. Normal maps are visual representation of the highs and lows of a texture and it created 3D dimensionality without adding additional geometry to the figure. I used the texture ice and on top of that I added the material glass for a more shiny outcome

Other texture what I wanted to try was metal iron. I wanted to do the opposite of using a dark color by this texture what we are usually used to, instead of that I used a sweet and soft color. I expected that the texture of metal iron had more depth. I couldn't yet figure out how I can adjust this, something I want to try in the future

Texture: Alien Metal

And finally I developed my first AR virtual dress and is now live to experience by yourself on Snapchat. Open Snapchat and point your camera at the Snapcode. Press and hold the Snapcode on your screen to scan it.

This is an organic looking substance what I found as texture on the internet and got immediately my attention to try it on my designs. I just edit some small adjustments like the color and saved it as normal maps and added it on the poncho. Love the depth of the texture in combination with the shiny plastic material

This is the chosen freeze moment that I wanted to render and use as a pose for my AR filter. I did this because the first try out with the same dress was still little static and I wanted to see more expressiveness