For those who don’t know the site: FippedNormals is/was a CG store for assets and training you use alongside Blender, ZBrush, Unreal Engine, and the Substance 3D tools, when your pipeline needs fewer guesses and more ready-to-ship bits. Also Plugins, Tutorials, 3d-Printfiles and much more.

The dates you need on your calendar

The FlippedNormals Marketplace will stop accepting new orders on March 31, 2026. After that, purchases are done. Access to previously purchased files stays available until April 30, 2026. After that date, marketplace files will no longer be accessible. Creator payouts have a final date too. The last creator payout happens on April 15, 2026.

April 30, 2026 is also tied to creator operations, because the Creator Dashboard shuts down on the same day customers lose access to file hosting. If you bought something in the past, invoices matter. An invoice was emailed after every purchase, and it should be in the email inbox used at checkout. You can keep what you have locally forever, but you need to get it locally first. Treat April 30, 2026 as a hard donwload deadline, not a friendly suggestion.

What is actually shutting down

This is a shutdown of the marketplace, not a blanket disappearance of everything connected to it. The official plan is a smaller, more focused reboot that pivots away from running a broad storefront with thousands of creators. The new website is planned to focus on FlippedNormals Exclusives and FlipBox.

Why it is happening

The reason given is simple and painfully familiar to anyone who has ever stared at an infrastructure bill and then stared at their revenue chart. Expenses increased significantly over the last years while earnings decreased. Salary reductions were also mentioned as part of efforts to keep things going.

A key detail here is that revenue from FlippedNormals Exclusives was used to keep the marketplace afloat during that period. That combination of higher operating costs, lower earnings, and internal cost cutting still led to the conclusion that the marketplace model was no longer sustainable. If you are reading this as a warning label for other niche CG storefronts, resist the urge to generalize. The only confirmed facts here are the reasons described for this specific shutdown, not the whole sector.

What customers should do right now

Log in, open your library, and pull down everything you have paid for to local storage before April 30, 2026. If your workflow spans multiple machines, back up like you mean it. Put a copy on a second drive. Put another copy wherever your studio keeps long-term project archives. If you rely on invoice PDFs for accounting, store those alongside the content so future you does not have to play detective.

If you depend on the platform for recurring downloads during a production, plan to stop depending on it before the cutoff. The last thing you want is a late-night render emergency that turns into an “amrketplace is gone” surprise.

There is also a specific path for owners of exclusives content. If you purchased FlippedNormals Exclusives on the current marketplace, there is a process to move them to the new site once it launches.

That process requires contacting support after the new site is live, using the support email address. A 100 percent promo code is described as the mechanism to migrate courses to a new account. One more detail that will trip up anyone on autopilot: you will have to make a new user account for the new site as part of that migration flow.

What creators should expect

If you sell on marketplaces, you already know the question creators ask first: what about payouts. The official timeline includes a final creator payout date of April 15, 2026. That is presented as the last payout event. There is also an operational cutoff on April 30, 2026, when the Creator Dashboard shuts down.

If you are a creator and you have analytics, product files, thumbnails, descriptions, license text, or customer support notes you rely on, assume you need to export whatever you can before that dashboard goes dark.

The new site focus, as described, narrows the catalog to FlippedNormals Exclusives and FlipBox. That is a very different value proposition from a wide creator marketplace, even if the UI ends up sleeker. If your pipeline planning relies on “I can always re-download that later,” change the habit. This event is a reminder that availability is a feature you only notice once it is gone.

https://help.flippednormals.com/article/130-flippednormals-marketplace-closing-down-faq

The post FlippedNormals Marketplace closes March 31 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Making a film with some friends, with no studio, no mocap stage, and no budget, usually sounds like a dead end. For realtime director Dimitri Vallein, it became the premise for New Specimen, a four-minute sci-fi short built entirely in Unreal Engine 5 using iPhones, off-the-shelf software, and a lot of patience. Every shot from facial capture and markerless body motion to full cloth simulation  was produced solo in his living room. The result isn’t a tech demo but a polished short film that questions how far a single artist can push cinematic storytelling inside the realtime toolset.

DP: Hi! Can you introduce yourself?

Dimitri Vallein: Hi everyone! I’m Dimitri, a real-time 3D director and technologist. Before filmmaking, I built projects around immersive 3D technologies. I reached 500M+ views, creating Augmented Reality experiences and developing video games that hit #1 on the French App Store. A few years ago, I turned to Unreal Engine with a clear goal: to direct the sci-fi films I’d always dreamed of seeing.

Since then, I’ve written, directed, and self-produced two UE5 shorts: The Last Star (IMDB) (2022), screened at Dances With Films LA at the TCL Chinese Theatre and was selected for the BMVAs (Best Animation) alongside The Weeknd, Pharrell Williams, and Muse. And now, New Specimen (2024), which was a semi-finalist at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and later led to an invitation to join a panel with Ron Dyens (Oscar-winning producer of Flow) to discuss real-time 3D, the exact process I’ll break down here.

DP: So, how did this all start?

Dimitri Vallein: Everything began with this single render from my friend Qtn.cls: a lone figure in a night field. If you want to see his stuff, check his Instagram | Artstation | Youtube
I felt instantly connected to it. I could feel the silence, the cold breath, the mystery. In that moment, the world of New Specimen started to take shape in my mind. I called my childhood friend Vincent Guyon and laid out the vision for where this could go. We bounced ideas back and forth until the story snapped into shape. Together, we drafted a tight 4-minute outline, and I jumped straight into production.

DP: How did you create the main Character? And what exactly is it?

Dimitri Vallein: One key point for me was to create a unique, distinct look for the main character. Most of the time when you watch Unreal Engine short films, you can spot MetaHumans immediately, and it often pulls you out of the story. The problem is usually that people use MetaHuman’s default look, which still feels quite uncanny. It often lacks the personality and style you will look for when creating something distinctive. That’s why I chose a 3DScanStore head scan to avoid this trap and go for something unique.

I picked the scan like I’d cast an actor. I was looking for a distinctive face—something that doesn’t look too much like a human, but at the same time doesn’t look too much like a fantasy creature. I wanted the viewer to see a bit of themselves in this creature, so they could feel more emotion toward it and more easily relate to what’s happening to him.

Then I “MetaHumanized” it while keeping the surface details from 3DScanStore by adapting the original UVs to the MetaHuman UVs I just created. This step mattered because I still wanted to use the MH animation features, especially the facial rig, which were crucial to my process.

Facial Animation

DP: The character’s face has a few unique shapes – how did you translate the rigs? And the eyes are very weird – can you talk us through their setup and creative process? Did you try normal eyes first, and then go for the full black?
Dimitri Vallein: For the rig, the whole goal was to keep MetaHuman’s facial system, but preserve the scan’s personality. I MetaHumanized the head so I could use the MH rig, then I protected the “non-standard” features by keeping the scan’s surface language and not smoothing it into a generic MetaHuman face.
For the eyes, it’s the first thing I did after the MH process: I changed the eye material to something more unique and distinctive. I’ve always loved experimenting with new materials in my scenes, something you wouldn’t expect at first, but that creates visually interesting results. This is the same process I used to create the 3D environment for The Last Star.
I probably tried dozens and dozens of different materials to finally create its magic. I had this idea from the beginning: to have eyes that look entirely metallic, while still catching reflections from the lights to give him that sparkle of a soul. It was a deliberate story choice.

One of the biggest challenges was getting believable facial expressions, and, above all, making them land emotionally for the viewer (curiosity → apprehension → anxiety → fear → desperation). I didn’t have an experienced actor around me, so I did it myself.

I used my iPhone with the Live Link Face application (Made by Epic) to capture takes for each sequence, processed the data in Unreal Engine, and synced it with the body animation in the sequencer. I added light facial keyframes to push certain expressions or correct specific muscle movements, but about 90% of the results came straight from the capture.

DP: Considering the movements, shouldn’t that be easy on any Mocap Stage?

Dimitri Vallein: I didn’t have the budget to rent a motion-capture stage with suits, hire performers, and bring in a tech team for calibration and cleanup, so I explored markerless video-to-motion options and chose the tool Move.AI for its accuracy. I set up four iPhones on tripods around a small capture area, ran the standard calibration, and recorded all the performances myself in my living room.

The best part of this process was the iteration speed: If a take didn’t work properly, I could re-record the animation immediately. I exported FBX files from Move.AI, retargeted them in Unreal with the IK Retargeter, and did a light cleanup in the sequencer (foot contact, hand jitter, etc.) until it felt right on-screen with the lighting and environment.

DP: How did Move.Ai work for you? Will you use it again?

Dimitri Vallein: Move.AI was fantastic to use because it gave me the one thing I was looking for as a solo director: iteration speed. I could record, review in context, and redo takes immediately. It’s not always perfect; some parts of the body still need attention and cleaning sometimes, but the trade-off was worth it in that context. It also gave me the opportunity to try different acting choices and decide which emotion I wanted to evoke.
Yes, I’ll use it again, especially for the animatic phase when I’m alone and iterating quickly. But for a more ambitious project, I’m aiming to do performance capture with real actors and direct them on the spot. That’s what I’m planning for my next project. The interesting part about cinema is that it’s a collective art form, and as my projects grow, I want to get closer to that. That’s also where all the fun and memories are made.

DP: So, to make it easy, you used a flowing hospital gown?

Dimitri Vallein: One thing I always aim for in 3D is to keep every pixel in motion. CGI gets static and fake pretty fast. So I like to keep everything moving on screen, even subtly; the result feels more believable to the human eye. That’s why I decided to take the hard road for the clothes and simulate them for my characters on every shot.

DP: I assume the new ML-Cloth wasn’t available in the version of Unreal that you used?

Dimitri Vallein: No, not yet. For that, Jon Sanchez (who worked with me on The Last Star) designed a hospital-style gown in Marvelous Designer. He also created a torn, distressed variant of the garment with rips along the hem and sleeves. I love this choice because it lets the outfit evolve with the story. Check out his Instagram and Artstation to see some of it!

Once the garments were designed and optimised, the next challenge was simulation. I exported the MetaHuman animations and brought them into Marvelous Designer.

DP: Considering that this was simulated Cloth over a motion-captured rig, how many Iterations did you need to make it look liveable?

Dimitri Vallein: Some simulations went right after a few iterations. (walks, look-arounds). Others were bigger challenges; the hardest were probably sprints, shoulder rolls, and sudden stops. They needed troubleshooting: collision thickness tweaks, pattern adjustments, higher sub-steps, and occasional re-caches until everything fell into place. I then exported the cloth back to Unreal as Alembic (Ogawa) and integrated it into each sequence.

DP: Soooo, let’s talk about the location – where did those come from?

Dimitri Vallein: The environment and lighting were created by Qtn.cls. I had already worked with him on Vortex, and we’ve always been closely aligned on the aesthetics we like. It was great to work with him again.

DP: Which stumbling blocks did you encounter during setup?

Dimitri Vallein: It’s one thing to create cool visuals and animate them in a fast-cut or epic way, or have them
work with strong music and a voice-over that takes all the space, or even use masked 3D characters to avoid showing the eyes and/or mouth.

It’s another thing to tell a real story, with multiple 3D characters interacting with each other, without any artefacts to hide facial features or music to take over the story. So the biggest challenge, and also the most interesting one, was confronting the digital human problem head-on, with everything that implies. I had to learn a lot of different things to make it work visually, and I’m happy with how the emotions, facial expressions, and micro-muscle movements turned out. I think this is what most 3D artists avoid, but it’s also the thing that, if we break through, the world is ours.

DP: Looking forward, with the recent updates to Unreal, what are you looking for to utilise in your next project, and was, in your opinion, already perfect as it is?
Dimitri Vallein: I’m really looking for more AI-driven tools built directly into Unreal Engine. The tool I’m most eager to have is an AI tech that understands my characters and their intentions, and, based on the environment, the story, and good prompting, can generate procedural animations. It would be an amazing step forward for creating animatics easily. It would be a real revolution in my process.
I’m also interested in the evolution of Nvidia’s tech toolsets they keep releasing, like the Audio2Face we can use directly with MetaHumans, which is super cool. I’m looking forward to progress that might even let you prompt the emotion you want to generate on a MetaHuman face based on the audio you give it as input.

Finally, as a side note, I’m using Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab more and more to create and train my own robots. As a 3D aficionado, I see those 2 softwares as an extension of my work into the real world. You can even imagine cute creatures, develop a movie based on them, and then train them directly in Isaac Sim/Lab, and then you have a direct path to bring your story and IP into the real world!

DP: Did you go for the festivals?
Dimitri Vallein: Yes, strategically. New Specimen screened at Animation First in New York, where I presented the film to the audience and joined a panel with Ron Dyens (Oscar-winning producer of Flow), Boris Labbé, and Leslie Lynch to discuss real-time workflows and the use of AI in animation. I’m happy New Specimen was a semi-finalist at Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, and it also opened the door to the VIEW Conference in Turin. I’m also currently preparing a VR version of New Specimen to keep pushing immersive experiences and storytelling, so you might see me at immersive film festivals in the coming months and years too!

DP: And what is the next project you are working on?
Dimitri Vallein: My next project is called The Day I Met You. It should come out this year, in 2026. It’s my most ambitious project to date: 20 minutes of pure 3D. I believe more and more that Hollywood has become repetitive, pessimistic, and mechanical, addicted to the same franchises. They’ve stopped developing bold new ideas that push the boundaries of our imagination. There’s an opportunity here for the new generation of filmmakers to create innovative films by harnessing optimism, new technologies, and our deepest scientific
ideas. So this next project will focus on a hopeful future, one where scientific discovery moves civilisation forward.

The post Unreal Reality: Building A New Specimen first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Marvellous Designer by CLO Virtual Fashion is a pattern-based cloth simulation tool used for apparel, characters, and virtual garments, usually upstream of DCC tools and game engines.

A cheaper licence, same application

CLO Virtual Fashion has introduced an indie pricing tier (on Request) for Marvelous Designer. The company announced the change through its official support news channel. The new licence is aimed at individual users and small studios that fall below a defined annual revenue threshold. According to CLO Virtual Fashion, the indie licence provides access to the same Marvelous Designer application as existing subscriptions. No functional differences, feature removals, or technical limitations are described in the announcement. The company does not position the licence as a learning or non-commercial edition.

The indie licence is restricted by revenue. Eligibility is limited to individuals or companies with annual gross revenue below the threshold specified by CLO Virtual Fashion. The company states that users are responsible for ensuring they meet the eligibility requirements. No automated enforcement mechanism is described.

Pricing and availability

CLO Virtual Fashion offers the indie licence at lower monthly and annual prices than its standard subscription. At the time of writing, we don’t know the actual price; you’ll have to apply here. Regional pricing, taxes, and currency conversion are not detailed yet.

Context and industry pattern

Indie pricing has become common among DCC and simulation tool vendors as subscription models mature and people are going the free / open source route with falling revenue and higher cost all over. So far, the company frames the change as an accessibility measure rather than a product restructuring. As with any licensing change, new tools and pricing models should be tested before use in actual prdouctoin environments to avoid compliance and pipeline issues.

Marvelous Designer introduces indie pricing

https://www.marvelousdesigner.com/en/support/news/view/b9471a7acc77478a863fd114756d5c19

The post Marvelous Designer adds indie pricing, quietly first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The 2025.2 update of Marvelous Designer, developed by CLO Virtual Fashion, focuses on five new features that enhance realism, efficiency, and creative control across digital garment workflows. The release expands the program’s animation and simulation toolkit while tightening interoperability with external systems such as Epic Games’ MetaHuman Creator.

Keyframe Animation Gains Real Cloth Control

The most substantial technical update lies in the expanded key-framable properties. Fabric behaviour can now be animated directly through properties such as shrinkage, pressure, solidify, tack, and trim weight. Artists can animate shrinkage weft and warp to tighten or loosen cloth dynamically, or use pressure values to create inflation and deflation effects. The solidify control adjusts fabric stiffness over time, useful for animating transitions from soft to rigid materials in one shot. Tack properties can be keyed to attach or release trims, and trim weight itself can be animated — for example, making a prop lighter or heavier in response to motion. This deeper control allows complex, physically-based animations such as self-inflating garments, reactive drapery, or controlled cloth deformation without leaving Marvelous Designer’s simulation environment.

Patterns Become Trims and Accessories

Patterns can now be converted directly into trims or avatar accessories through a context-menu operation. Once converted, these assets are stored as Trim Styles or registered as accessories, allowing them to be reused across projects. The change provides clear advantages in asset management and simulation efficiency. Trims are treated as rigid geometry rather than simulated cloth, which reduces processing overhead. This workflow supports the creation of non-deformable surfaces such as metal, wood, or plastic, enabling hard-surface detailing directly inside Marvelous Designer. In practice, it is now possible to design a fully armoured character by converting fabric plates into rigid trims or to repurpose footwear and props as reusable accessories.

Local FBX Export Without CONNECT

EveryWear, Marvelous Designer’s asset-exporter, now supports direct FBX export to local storage. Earlier versions required users to upload garments to the CONNECT platform before download. The 2025.2 revision replaces that dependency with a local-only workflow. Artists can optimise garments, rig avatars, pack UVs, bake textures, and export the final FBX directly to disk. This update eliminates one of the most common production bottlenecks, streamlining integration with DCC tools and game engines that rely on FBX.

MetaHuman DNA Import

Epic Games’ MetaHuman Creator avatars can now be imported directly into Marvelous Designer in their native DNA format. This import process is non-destructive, preserving the avatar’s proportions, mesh fidelity and rigging data. Designers can fit garments directly on MetaHuman bodies, export them back to Unreal Engine, and have the clothing automatically adapt to any subsequent body adjustments made in MetaHuman Creator. The result is a tighter pipeline between digital-human design and cloth simulation, significantly reducing retargeting and scaling errors.

Pleats Made Simple

Creating pleats manually has long been a slow, calculation-heavy task. The new Pleats Tool simplifies the process with an interactive interface for generating knife, box or accordion pleats. Designers can adjust number, depth, interval and fold angle parameters directly in the tool’s window, previewing results in real time. The system allows non-destructive editing: pleats can be undone and modified without redrawing patterns. This not only saves time but also makes pleated garments—such as skirts, dresses and uniforms—more iterative and design-friendly.

Pricing

Marvelous Designer 2025.2 is available now for both Windows 10 and later, and macOS 12 and above. The software continues to be offered exclusively through subscription. Individual licences are priced at around US $39 per month, or US $280 per year, equating to roughly US $23 per month when billed annually. Enterprise pricing remains higher, with node-locked licences typically around US $199 per month or US $1,900 per year, and floating licences in the region of US $2,000 per year.

As always, professionals should test the new version within controlled environments before integrating it into production pipelines. Although the update appears stable in demonstrations, verifying simulation performance, export fidelity, and MetaHuman interoperability is essential before deployment.

The post Marvelous Designer 2025.2: MetaHumans, Pleats & Keyframes first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Update: HERE IT IS! Get your Penguin-flavoured Cloth-Sim!
A trial is available, of course.

CLO Virtual Fashion will release Marvelous Designer for Linux on 30 September 2025. The company confirms support for Rocky Linux 9, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, and equivalent distributions. The Linux version is aimed squarely at studio pipelines. CLO states the release was designed with “stability and simulation accuracy in mind,” focusing on predictable results in production environments.

All features, plus Python API

The Linux edition ships with the same toolset as the current Marvelous Designer builds on other operating systems. In addition, CLO introduces a Python API.

According to the official announcement, this interface enables users to:

• Run scripts directly inside Marvelous Designer
• Batch import and export files
• Adjust and control simulation parameters
• Automate repetitive tasks and workflows

This makes the Linux edition not only feature-complete, but also more automation-friendly than previous versions.

Enterprise-oriented integration

The release is clearly targeted at enterprise use, with the focus on pipeline automation, batch operations, and scriptability. CLO emphasises scalability and consistency, though these are vendor claims and not independently verified at press time. Studios relying on Linux-based render and simulation farms can now integrate Marvelous Designer directly without the need for Windows or macOS workarounds.

Availability

Marvelous Designer for Linux will be available from 30 September 2025. At press time, CLO has not published pricing details specific to the Linux version. The product can be accessed via the official Marvelous Designer website then. As with all new software releases, professionals should test the Linux build thoroughly before integrating it into production pipelines.

The post Marvelous Designer finally sews itself into Linux first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The new Clothy3D tool promises to make character pipelines more flexible, at no cost, at least for now. The software is designed to auto-fit and rig clothing models across a wide range of 3D characters and platforms, offering a set of converters that could connect otherwise separate workflows.

What It Does

Clothy3D can auto-fit and rig clothes from sources like Marvelous Designer, Daz3D, or iClone Character Creator, and also supports 18 body types of Metahuman. It transfers skeletons and skin weights between characters, rigs static meshes with existing skeletons, and even wraps mesh topology and textures from one character to another. Input and output are handled in FBX, and the devs mention support for OBJ and DXF in converters.

Why It’s Interesting

The tool effectively acts as a universal adapter: skeleton transfers, mesh wrapping, and skin-weight conversions could be used to move assets across different ecosystems without tedious manual setup. For pipelines that juggle assets between Unreal Engine, Daz, or Marvelous Designer, that flexibility might save hours.

On top of that, there’s a marketplace attached, where assets can be discovered, bought, and sold. Right now, content is sparse, but the structure is in place and depending on adoption, this could grow into a useful exchange hub.

Caveats

All of this comes with a big asterisk: Clothy3D is brand new and still in a beta-like state. It’s free to use at the moment, but untested in production environments. While the promise of “fit anything to anything” is tempting, reliability across real-world projects remains to be seen. If you’re looking for a weekend experiment or if your pipeline involves a lot of cross-platform character work, Clothy3D might be worth a spin. Just don’t expect the stability of a battle-tested DCC plugin yet.

Interface, Scenes & Exports

Clothy3D’s UI is built around a three-scene viewport layout: left, middle, and right scenes all sharing a synchronized camera view so you always see from the same angle. The left scene acts as a composite view, reflecting the combination of whatever is imported in the middle and right scenes; the right and middle scenes remain independent and each can host its own models or assets. Depending on which tool you’re using (Cloth Convertor, Character Convertor, etc.), the roles of these scenes adapt accordingly. For example, the middle may show cloth, the right the base character, and the left their merged result.

In terms of the UI controls: it features a layered tool-button system, so choosing a top-level action shows context-sensitive button sets beneath it. Hovering on a tool button triggers a tooltip after a moment, helping with discoverability. You can also control viewing options such as whether faces are rendered front/back, or switch the “Color Mode” (normal color, black, or white) to enforce consistent visibility, especially useful for transparent meshes or to show stitching faces.

Mouse navigation is standard: left-drag orbits, middle-drag pans, mouse wheel zooms; the right button largely is reserved for editing mesh elements (faces, vertices, edges) in the middle and right scenes, or for panning in the left view.

Regarding import/export: the middle and right scenes can each independently import and export their own models or assets. The left scene doesn’t allow direct imports (it’s purely an aggregation), but whenever something is loaded into middle or right, it also appears in left. In the “Account & Import/Export” section, you can also see your user account info (e-mail, remaining monthly exports). Export is capped, users get a limited number of exports per month.

Thus the interface is designed to provide parallel views (source / target / result) in lockstep, while keeping editing tools, visibility toggles, and import/export flows relatively consistent across the different modules.

Character Convertor

The Character Convertor tool lets you ingest an arbitrary rigged tetrapod base character (in FBX or DAE format) and produce a standardized interchangeable base character asset. First, you import your rigged base character into the middle scene. Optionally, you can clean up or edit that character, for example, delete unused meshes like clothes or weapons, duplicate or align meshes, hide faces, adjust vertex positions, or even tweak skeletons and skin weights.

Then you wrap a target interchangeable base character (in the right scene) to match the imported rig. Two wrapping approaches exist: applying an existing deformer template (faster, if one matches the character topology) or manually deforming via point/face matching (with a Character Builder or import of partial shapes, then matching points/faces). As you wrap, you can iteratively adjust both source and target geometry to improve the match. After wrapping, you configure parameters in the processing flow, run automatic steps, and finally export your new interchangeable base character to disk.

In effect, the Character Convertor acts as a bridge: you bring in a rig you want to preserve or reuse, deform a canonical interchangeable skeleton mesh to match it, and output a version you can reliably use in downstream tools like cloth fitting, skeleton transfers, or asset marketplaces.

Tutorials

Clothy3D already comes with a sizeable set of tutorials to help users ramp up. There’s a Studio Quickstart that introduces the core UI and navigation, along with dedicated quickstarts for Character Convertor, Cloth Convertor, Dress3D, Skeleton Transfer, and Deform3D. Beyond the basics, workflow guides walk through Unreal Engine integration (UE5.4), building characters via the Character Builder, wrapping and matching meshes, and using deformer templates for quicker results.

The clothing workflow is covered extensively: tutorials explain converting standard garments, preparing clothes for Metahuman, simulating and rendering cloth, working with Marvelous Designer assets, managing double-sided or layered clothing, and fine-tuning shape control points. Other deep dives address transfer points for skin weights, keeping selected parts rigid, smoothing weights, or adding auxiliary bones. There are also lessons on editing and converting skeletons, rigging static characters, handling complex footwear like high-heel shoes, and preparing/publishing assets to the marketplace.

The post Clothy3D: New Tool for Clothing Auto-Fit, Rigging & Mesh Transfers first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Off-Avatar 3D Pen Drawing

Marvelous Designer 2025.1 introduces the long-requested ability to draw clothing directly in the 3D window. Using the 3D Pen (Avatar) tool, artists can sketch curves on the avatar’s surface, in empty 3D space, or along a plane, and then convert those curves into editable 2D patterns. According to the official manual, these patterns can be refined in the 2D view like any other drafted garment piece. The feature closes a persistent gap between freehand exploration and structured pattern creation.

Keep Topology after Autofitting

The Auto-Fitting tool, explained in the support documentation, now includes an option to preserve garment topology. In earlier versions, autofitting could distort or rebuild a mesh when adapting clothing to avatars of different proportions. With the new setting enabled, the quad structure remains intact, which avoids unnecessary retopology work when adjusting garments for variations in avatar size.

Pattern Drafter (Beta)

Another headline addition is the Pattern Drafter, marked as Beta. Available from the 2D menu, the tool generates a shirt pattern from user inputs such as body measurements, descriptive keywords, or flat sketches. The official guide describes three display modes: General for a complete list of measurement points, Simple for the most common dimensions, and Custom for user-defined sets. Measurements can be entered manually or by circumference. An extension called AI Pattern Drafter makes it possible to generate drafts from either text prompts or uploaded schematic sketches. At present, this functionality is limited to T-shirts, but outputs are stored with a selectable history for iteration.

Softbody for Custom Avatars

Softbody simulation, previously restricted to default avatars, can now be applied to custom avatars. As documented in the Avatar Properties manual, this expansion allows imported rigs or meshes to benefit from the same softbody physics, broadening the scope of cloth-to-avatar interaction.

Denim Wet Wash

The update also introduces a denim-specific material effect. The Denim Wet Wash tool provides parameters for wash strength, direction, and masking, and supports the blending of multiple washes. This makes it possible to create realistic denim wear and fading directly inside Marvelous Designer, reducing the need to move back and forth between external texturing applications.

AI Pose Generator (Beta)

A second Beta tool, the AI Pose Generator, enables automatic avatar posing through prompts or reference images. As outlined in the official instructions, users can specify descriptive keywords, including gender markers, randomise prompts, or upload full-body reference photos. The system outputs poses as .pos files ready for use in simulation. CLO warns that the service may be temporarily suspended for improvements, reflecting its Beta status.

Additional Improvements

Version 2025.1 also refines everyday workflows. Zipper style customisation is expanded, and internal lines and shapes can now be grouped for better organisation. A mirror paste function for trims accelerates symmetrical editing. The new Blend Print with Fabric option produces more natural interaction between print textures and cloth. Avatars can now display a wireframe overlay for more precise alignment, and garments can be saved selectively rather than exporting entire scenes. A new AI Studio panel is listed but not explained further in the vendor’s documentation.

Bug Fixes

Two technical issues were corrected in this release. Spiral shapes now generate correctly when using inches as the unit, and decimal inputs are once again accepted in regions where the operating system uses a comma as the decimal separator.

Pricing, Supported Systems, and File Compatibility

Marvelous Designer 2025.1 is available on a subscription basis only, with personal licences priced at around 39 US dollars per month or about 280 dollars per year. Enterprise licences are significantly higher and are tailored for studio use. A discounted student licence is offered as a one-time purchase for 99 dollars. The software supports modern 64-bit operating systems: Windows 10 version 1903 or later, including Windows 11, and macOS Monterey (macOS 12) or newer, with support for Apple Silicon Macs but not for older systems such as Mojave.

The application imports and exports common 3D file formats. Supported options include OBJ, FBX—with the limitation that only joints imported as FBX can be exported in the same format—Alembic, and Universal Scene Description (USD). These formats ensure compatibility with other major DCC tools such as Maya, 3ds Max, and Unreal Engine.

Reminder for Production Use

Pattern Drafter and AI Pose Generator are both designated as Beta and should be handled with caution. As with any newly introduced function, professionals are advised to test stability and usability thoroughly before integrating them into production workflows.

The post Marvelous Designer 2025.1: Draw, Wash, Repeat first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

CLO Virtual Fashion has released Marvelous Designer 2025.0, and it’s not shy about showing off its stitches. With nine headline features and a sprawling list of upgrades, the new version promises better usability, faster workflows, and a few furry surprises.

UI Improvement: Better Buttons, Less Guessing

The overall user interface has been reworked. Marvelous Designer now features a cleaner, more intuitive layout for easier navigation. Whether you’re managing assets, animating garments, or wondering why you still haven’t finished that one seam, the updated UI promises fewer detours.

Keyframe Animation: More Things, More Keys

Animation got an upgrade. The keyframe system now includes new keyframeable attributes such as wind and fabric properties. So yes, you can now animate not just how a cape flaps, but how aggressively it flaps—with full control over dynamic forces.

Quad Mesh Improvement: Bye Bye, Tri Party

Mesh generation has improved significantly. Triangle clutter has been minimized, resulting in cleaner quad mesh output and better edge flow. This upgrade also translates to faster modeling and cleaner exports—ideal for rigging and simulation pipelines.

IK Joint Mapping: More Natural Poses, Less Wrestler Stiffness

Inverse Kinematics (IK) joint mapping allows for more natural avatar posing. Artists can now move and rotate joints directly to adjust avatar positions, which should reduce the “chicken wing” problem of previous posing workflows.

Side and Back UV Expansion: Because Clothes Have Backs Too

UV generation now includes not just the front, but also the sides and back of garments. For texture artists, this means more predictable and complete UV layouts—no more side seams hiding in the texture abyss.

[Beta] Fur Strand in 3D Window: Fuzzy Logic

Marvelous Designer now supports fur strand visualisation in the 3D window. Artists can adjust Fur Parameters and Fur Shape, with the ability to export fur as splines. Yes, it’s in beta, but it’s already offering control and feedback for furry assets—whether that’s for fashion, creatures, or shaggy cosplays.

Modular Library: Reusable Fashion Building Blocks

Users can now create variations of previously saved garment groups or block sets. This modular approach makes it easier to mix, match, and iterate on designs without rebuilding from scratch. Welcome to kitbashing—now with pants.

Other Features Worth a Mention

While the above are the “key” updates, Marvelous Designer 2025.0 also includes support for USDZ export, OBJ zipper teeth presets, smooth corners for topstitching, color switching, FBX export with material names, schematic rendering, garment fit property tweaking, and the ability to load all texture maps at once. Also: auto fitting improvements, topstitch polygon optimization, and animation with trim simulation.

Among the less flashy but still practical additions: an improved Avatar Editor, Auto Seal, Blend Graphics with Fabric, and a new Sculpt Tool. Oh, and auto sewing. Machines might not take your job—but they’re definitely hemming closer.

Pricing and Availability

For up-to-date license models, visit the Marvelous Designer website.

Caution Before Integration

As always, we recommend testing all new features before integrating them into production pipelines. Some, like the fur strand visualisation, are marked as beta—and even stable features may behave differently under production stress.

The post Marvelous 2025: Now with Extra Fur, Fewer Triangles first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The project “Ballerina” is a 30-second CG animation, Kay John Yim’s first personal project with an animated photorealistic CG character staged in a large baroque round hall. The ballerina character was created mainly with Character Creator, animated in iClone and rendered with Redshift and Cinema4D.

Kay John Yim is an architect at Spink Partners based in London. He has worked on a variety of projects in the UK, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, including property development and landscape design. His work has been published on Maxon, Artstation, CG Record and 80.LV.

Yim’s growing passion for designing architecture using technology gradually led him to become a CGI artist, developing visuals that serve not only as client presentations but also as a communication tool for the design and construction team. Since the COVID lockdown in 2021, he has attended courses in CG and has since won more than a dozen CG competitions.

This making-of tutorial article is an abridged version of “Ballerina: A CGI Fantasy”, written by Kay John Yim. The full version can be found at the Fox Renderfarm News Centre.

The making of Ballerina

The animation is a representation of the inner conflicts I have with all artistic endeavours, both metaphorical and literal. Ballet, an art form that is known to have strict beauty standards and is highly susceptible to public criticism and self-criticism, is the metaphor for my daily professional and artistic practice. As an architect, I work on architectural visualisations during the day, where every detail is scrutinised by my colleagues, senior architects and clients. As an artist, I work on my own CG projects at night, doing hundreds to thousands of iterations to find the perfect composition and colour scheme. No matter how much I grow in my professional and artistic skills, the inner struggle never goes away.

Months of trial and error have taught me a lot about efficient character animation and rendering. This article is a guide for all indie artists like me who want to develop their CG art.

The guide is divided into 4 main parts:
● The Architecture
● The character
● The animation
● The rendering

I used the following software, among others
● Rhino
● Moment of Inspiration 4 (MOI)
● Cinema4D (C4D)
● Redshift (RS)
● Character Creator (CC)
● iClone
● ZBrush & ZWrap
● XNormal
● Marvelous Designer 11 (MD)
● Houdini

1. The architecture

My main software for architectural modelling is Rhino. There are many different ways to approach architectural modelling. The main advantage of Rhino over some other popular DCCs like Cinema4D (C4D) or Houdini is the ability to edit very detailed curves in large quantities.

As an architect, every model I built always started with a curve, usually in the form of a wall section, cornice or plinth section drawn along another curve of a plan. Rhino’s command list may seem overwhelming at first glance, but I used almost exclusively a dozen of these commands to turn curves into 3D geometry:

● Rebuild
● Trim
● Blend
● Sweep
● Extrude
● Sweep 2 Rails
● Flow Along Surface
● Surface from Network of Curves

The key to architectural modelling is to use references wherever possible. I always have PureRef open in the bottom right hand corner of my screen to ensure I am modelling in the correct proportions and scale. This usually includes actual photos and architectural drawings.

For this particular project, I used the hunting room of the Amalienburg in Munich as the primary reference for the architecture.

Although the architecture consisted of three parts – the rotunda, the corridor and the end wall – it was basically the same module. Therefore, I first modelled a wall module consisting of a mirror and a window, duplicated it and bent it along a circle to obtain the walls of the rotunda.

The module was reused for both the corridor and the end wall to save time and (rendering) memory. As I had built up a library of architectural profiles and ornaments over the last year, I was able to reuse and recycle profiles and ornaments for modelling the architecture.

Modelling ornaments can be a difficult task, but with a few ornaments modelled, I simply duplicated and geometrically rearranged them to create unique shapes.

All objects within Rhino were then assigned to different layers based on the material; this made material assignment much easier later in C4D.

Note: The best way to familiarise yourself with Rhino navigation is to model small objects. Simply Rhino offers a great beginner’s series for modelling a teapot in Rhino: for those who are stuck, there are pre-made ornaments that can be purchased from 3D model shops such as Textures.com; some ornament manufacturers offer free models for download on Sketchfab and 3dsky.

Exporting from Rhino to C4D

Rhino is primarily a NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) software; and although NURBS models are very accurate in representing curve and surface data, most render engines or DCCs do not support NURBS.

For this reason, I exported the NURBS and MESHES to .3dm and .FBX respectively and used Moment of Inspiration (MOI) to convert the NURBS model to a mesh.

MOI provides the best conversion of NURBS to quad mesh (compared to Rhino or other DCCs) – it always provides a flawless mesh that can then be easily edited or UV mapped for rendering.

Import into C4D

Importing the FBX file into C4D was relatively easy, but there were a few things I paid attention to, specifically the import settings, model orientation and file unit, which are listed below in order of execution:
1. Open a new project in C4D (project unit in cm);
2. Merge FBX (merge FBX);
3. Select “Geometry” and “Material” in the merge panel;
4. Change the orientation of the imported geometry (P) by -90 degrees in the Y-axis;
5. Use the “AT Group All Materials” script to automatically organise Rhino materials into different groups.

I modelled half of the architecture in Rhino and then mirrored it as an instance in C4D as everything is symmetrical.

The floor (Versailles parquet tiles) was modelled using the photo texturing method propagated primarily by CG artist Ian Hubert. I took a photo of the Versailles parquet tiles as a texture on a layer and then sliced the layer with a “knife” tool to get the variations in reflective roughness along the tile joints. This allowed me to add subtle colour and dirt variations using Curvature in Redshift.

The floor tile was then placed under a cloner to duplicate it and stretch it across the entire floor.

Note: C4D and Rhino use different Y and Z orientations, so the FBX exported directly from Rhino must be rotated in C4D.

Architectural shading (Cinema4D Redshift)

Since I grouped all the meshes by materials in advance, assigning materials was as easy as dragging and dropping them onto the material groups as cubic maps or tri-planar maps. I used Textures.com, the EMC material pack from Greyscalegorilla and Quixel Megascans as base materials for all my shaders.

For ACES to work correctly in Redshift, each texture must be manually assigned to the correct colour space in the RS Texture Node; in general, diffuse/albedo maps belong to “sRGB” and the rest (roughness, displacement, normal maps) to “Raw”. My architectural shaders were mostly a 50/50 mix of photo texture and “dirt” texture to add an extra touch of realism.

2. The character

The underlying character was created in Character Creator 3 (CC3) using the Ultimate Morphs and SkinGen plugins, both of which are very user-friendly and offer self-explanatory parameters.

Ultimate Morphs offered precise sliders for each bone and muscle size of the character, while SkinGen offered a wide range of presets for skin colour, skin texture and make-up. I also used CC3’s Hair Builder to create a game-ready hair mesh for my character.

Facial texturing

The face was one of the most important areas of the CG character and required special attention. The best workflow I found to add photorealistic detail was the “killer workflow” using the VFace model from Texturing XYZ and Zwrap.

VFACE is a collection of state-of-the-art photogrammetric human head models produced by Texturing XYZ; each VFACE comes with 16K photoscanned skin textures, displacement and utility maps; Zwrap is a ZBrush plugin that allows you to automatically fit an existing topology to a custom model.

Using the “Killer Workflow”, I can transfer all the VFACE details to the CC3 head model once the two mesh shapes are aligned.

My customisation of the ” Killer Workflow ” can be described as follows:
2. Export T-Pose character from CC3 to C4D;
3. Delete all polygons except the head of the CC3 character;
4. Export CC3 head model and VFACE model to ZBrush;
5. Use MOVE/Smooth brush to adapt the VFACE model to the CC3 head model as far as possible;
6. Start ZWRAP and click and adjust as many points as possible, especially around the nose, eyes, mouth and ears;
7. ZWRAP processes the matching points;
8. ZWRARP should then be able to output a VFACE model that perfectly matches the CC3 head model;
9. Input both models into XNormal and bake the VFACE textures onto the CC3 head model.

Note: Full “Killer Workflow” tutorial on the official Textureing.XYZ Youtube channel: VFace – Getting Started with Amy Ash. I recommend saving the matching points to ZWRAP before processing. I also recommend baking all VFACE maps individually in XNormal as they are very high resolution and could cause XNormal to crash if baked in batch.

Skin Shading (Cinema4D Redshift)

Once I had finished the XYZ texture maps, I exported the rest of the character’s texture maps from CC3. I then imported the character into C4D and converted all the materials into Redshift materials.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, Redshift did not yet support Randomwalk SSS (a very realistic and physically accurate model for subsurface scattering that can be found in other renderers such as Arnold), so I had to do a lot more tweaking when rendering the skin.

The 3 layers of subsurface scattering were controlled by a single diffuse material with different “colour correct” settings. The head shader was a mix of the CC3 textures and the VFACE textures; the VFACE multi-channel displacement map was mixed with the CC3 displacement map “microskin”.

A “redshift object” was transferred to the character to activate the displacement – only then did the VFACE displacements become visible during rendering.

Hair shading

After experimenting with C4D Ornatrix, Maya Xgen and Houdini, I decided that using the baked hair mesh from CC3 was more efficient across the board for the “Ballerina” project. I’m using a Redshift “glass” material with CC3 hair texture maps fed into the “Reflection” and “Refraction” colour slots, as hair (in real life) reacts to light like little glass tubes.

Note: For anyone interested in making CC3 hair even more realistic, CGcircuit has a great parchment tutorial on how to create and simulate hair.

3. Animation/Character Animation: iClone

I then exported the CC character to iClone for animation. I considered several options to achieve a realistic animation of the character, including:
1. using mocap data from the catalogue (Mixamo, Reallusion ActorCore);
2. Hiring a mocap studio to create a customised mocap animation;
3. Using a mocap suit (e.g. Rokoko or Xsens) for customised mocap animation;
4. Conventional keyframing.

After experimenting with various off-the-shelf mocap data, I realised that Mixamo’s mocaps were far too generic and mostly very robotic looking; Reallusion Actorcore had some very realistic movements, but I couldn’t find exactly what I needed for the project. Since I had no budget and (my) very specific requirements for the character’s movements, options 2 and 3 were out of the question. This led me to classic keyframing.

First, I recorded videos of ballet performances and laid them out frame by frame in PureRef. Then I overlaid the PureRef reference (with half opacity) over iClone and adjusted each joint of the character to my reference using“Edit Motion Layer“.

The animated characters were then exported to Alembic files.

Note: While my final project concept shows ballerinas in slow motion, my original idea was to keyframe a 20-second ballet dance, which I quickly realised was a bad idea for several reasons:
1. Slow motion allowed many frames to be interpolated, but real-time movement required many individual frames, so much more fine-tuning was needed;
2. more frames meant more rendering problems (flickering, tessellation problems, etc.).

As this is my first project to animate a character, I decided to create a slow motion style sequence instead – 2 unique poses with 160 frames of motion each.

Clothing simulation

The clothing simulation was by far the most difficult part of the project. The two main cloth sims/solvers I considered were Marvelous Designer (MD) and Houdini Vellum.

While Houdini Vellum was much more flexible and reliable than Marvelous Designer, I personally found it far too slow and therefore impractical without a farm (one frame of fabric simulation could take up to 3 minutes in Houdini Vellum versus 30 seconds in Marvelous Designer on a Threadripper PRO 3955WX with 128 GB Ram).

While fabric simulation in MD is generally much faster to set up than Houdini Vellum, it was not as easy as I had imagined. Simulated garments in MD always had some kind of error;

These included flapping fabrics, soaking through the character, or just outright contortions. Below are some of the settings I tweaked to minimise problems:
1. Using “Tack” to attach parts of the garment to the character;
2. Increasing the “Density” and “Air Damping” of the fabric to prevent the garment from moving too quickly and getting out of position;
3. Simulate parts of the garment in isolation – this is not physically accurate, but I was able to iterate and debug much faster.

In addition to the above changes, I reduced the “gravity” to achieve a slow motion look.

Note: On the official Marvelous Designer Youtube channel there are many livestreams on clothing modelling, which I find very helpful for learning MD. Alternatively, there are many 3D garments available online (especially on the official Marvelous Designer website or on the Artstation Marketplace) that I have used as the basis for many of my projects.

MD is extremely crash-prone. Also, there is a bug in both MD10 and MD11 that prevents simulated garments from being saved 90% of the time, so you should always export simulated garments as Alembic files and not rely on MD to save the simulation.

Cleaning up the simulation

After dozens of simulations, I imported the alembic files exported with MD into Houdini, where I did a lot of manual cleanup, including
1. manually correcting clashed fabrics and characters with “Soft Transform”;
2. Reducing simulation noise with “Attribute Blur”;
3. Blending together the best simulations from different Alembic files with “Time Blend”.

Alternative to clothing simulation

For those frustrated by the impractical simulation times for Houdini Vellum fabrics and MD errors, an alternative is to literally attach the garment to the character’s skin in CC3 – a technique most commonly used in game production.

Note: You can find Reallusion’s official guide to making game-appropriate clothing here.

Baking and shading garments

Once I was done with the fabric simulation in MD and the cleanup in Houdini, I imported the Alembic file into C4D. MD Alembic files always appear in C4D as an Alembic object without selection sets; this makes material assignment impossible.

This is where C4D baking came into play – a process with which I converted the Alembic file into a C4D object with PLA (Point Level Animation):
1. Drag the Alembic object into the C4D timeline;
2. Switch to the menu item “Functions”;
3. “Bake Objects;
4. Select “PLA”;
5. Then bake.

The above steps gave me a baked C4D object from which I could easily select polygons and assign multiple materials using selection sets. I then exported an OBJ file from MD with materials, imported it into C4D and dragged the selection sets directly onto the baked garment object. This eliminated the need to manually reassign the materials in C4D.

I used a mixture of linen texture maps (from Quixel Megascans Bridge) and Redshift Car Shader to simulate the sequin fabric found on many professional ballet tutu dresses.

WARNING: Do not use AO or curvature nodes for the simulated clothing materials (or other animated objects), as these can potentially lead to disturbances in the final rendering.

4. Rendering

Lighting and environment

Although I tried to keep the lighting as minimal as possible, I had to do a lot of tinkering for the “Ballerina” project due to the nocturnal surroundings.

The nighttime HDRI didn’t provide enough ambient light for the interior, and the chandelier bulbs were far too dim as the main light source. In the end, I placed an invisible spotlight under the chandelier in the centre and used a spotlight to illuminate only the architectural ornaments. The spotlight provided an extra level of indirect light that provided just the right amount of illumination without destroying the moody atmosphere.

I also added a “Redshift environment” multiplied in the Z-axis with “Maxon Noise” to add depth to the scene. In the outdoor area, I added 2 variations of dogwood trees with C4D “Matrix” distributed in the environment. They were lit in the scene from the ground to create additional depth. The lighting of the scene includes:
1. Dome light (HDRI for night) x 1
2. Chandelier (mesh lights) x 3
3. Spotlight (centre) x 1
4. Exterior area lights x 4
5. Artificial area lighting under the chandelier (contains architectural ornaments only)

Note: The trees were generated with SpeedTree. It takes a lot of practice to perfect the lighting. In addition to my daily CG practice, I spent a lot of time watching clips from films – I was very inspired by Roger Deakin’s lighting and cinematography, for example, as well as Wes Anderson’s composition and colour combinations.

Camera movements

All my camera movements were very subtle. This included tracking shots, camera pans and rotations, all controlled with Greyscalegorilla’s C4D plugin Signal. I personally prefer using Signal because of its non-destructive nature, but old-school key-framing would also work very well for similar camera movements.

Draft Renderings

Once I had the character animations, cloth simulations and camera movements finalised, I started with low-resolution test renders to make sure I wouldn’t have any surprises in the final renders:
1. Flipbook renders (openGL) to make sure the timing of the animations was optimal;
2. Rendering a complete sequence with low resolution and low samples to make sure there are no glitches;
3. Rendering high resolution (2K) high sample still images with AOVs (diffuse, reflection, refraction, volume) to check what contributed to the predominant noise, if any;
4. Submitting test renders to Fox Renderfarm to ensure the final renders match my local renders.

This process took over 2 months of repeatedly creating renders and making corrections.

Final renderings & denoising

For the final renderings, I used a relatively high rendering setting, as interior scenes in Redshift are generally prone to noise.

I also had motion blur and bokeh turned on for the final renders – in general, motion blurs and bokehs look better (more physically accurate) in the render than motion blurs and bokehs added via compositing.

Half of the final 2K sequence was rendered on a local workstation, while the rest was rendered on Fox Renderfarm, totalling in about 6840 hours of render time on two RTX 3090 machines. I used Neat Video for denoising the final shot, while the close-ups were cleaned up with Single Altus (in Redshift).

Note: Always switch off “Random Noise Pattern” under Redshift “Unified Sampling” when using “Altus Single” for denoising.

Redshift Rendering GI trick

Redshift’s GI Irradiance Cache calculation can be quite costly; for example, my final renders have an average of 5 minutes of GI Irradiance Caching time per frame.

In Vray, there was an option in the IR/LC settings called “Use camera path” that was specifically designed for scenes where the camera is moving through a still scene. Once the “Use camera path” option was enabled, Vray calculated only one frame of the GI cache for an entire sequence. Following Vray, I use the following motion blur settings to calculate the first frame of the Irradiance cache:

The one Irradiance cache is then used to render the entire sequence. Two shots of the project were rendered with a single GI cache, resulting in an overall 10% faster render time.

Note : The GI trick is only applied to shots with very little movement. For example, when I applied it to the two close-up shots of the “Ballerina” project, I got slight blotches and ghosting on the character’s skin.

Conclusion

Working on the project for months gave me a new appreciation for traditional character animators – I never realised how much effort goes into creating character animations and how many subtle details are required to bring convincing CG characters to life.

Although I wouldn’t describe myself as a character artist, I believe that character animation is very effective in bringing CG environments to life and will therefore continue to be an essential part of my personal CG work in the future.

More information :
– Kay John Yim’s personal website https://johnyim.com/
– Kay John Yim’s ArtStation https://www.artstation.com/johnyim
– Character Creator https://www.reallusion.com/de/character-creator/download.html
– iClone https://www.reallusion.com/de/iclone/testversion.html
– Reallusion https://www.reallusion.com/de

The post Ballerina: CGI-Fantasie mit C4D, Character Creator und iClone first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

relative.berlin, like many successful studios, began as a group of freelance friends working together in a living room. Over the years, these friends grew closer and added new members to their team to form a holistic company with a passion for creative output at a high aesthetic level. In less than 10 years, the team has realised video productions for global brands such as Universal Music, Mercedes, Honda, McDonald’s and Kinder.

The core group of relative.berlin consists of 10 artists. The perfect mix of aesthetically orientated pixel pushers and playful tech nerds who challenge each other to stay up to date with the latest looks, trends and technical innovations. Starting with motion graphics and 3Danimation, relative. berlin has evolved to apply its expertise in photogrammetry, body motion capture and facial motion capture to real-time animation, VR/AR, digital fashion and almost all forms of CGI.

Hello Anders, and welcome to our Reallusion Feature Stories. Please briefly introduce yourself, relative.berlin, and your music project.

Anders Mortensen: Hi, we are a creative studio in the heart of Berlin, so rave culture is part of our DNA. During the pandemic, the lockdown required isolation, which was very problematic for everyone. Art and culture professionals were confronted with deep existential fears. As a studio, we were lucky to be able to continue working on projects during these difficult times and we wanted to give something back to the community.

That’s why it was a special pleasure for us to shoot a music video for our good friend DJ Taube and his song“Where To Go?“. The video shows a madman raging in a padded cell while imagining himself on stage in front of thousands, and a lonely dancer expressing his feelings through movement in undefined, confined spaces. It is an expression of our collective feelings about the lockdowns of the last few years, and it was a therapeutic exercise to transform these feelings into art.

A lot of software is used and combined with each other. Can you tell us how long it took your team to familiarise themselves with iClone and Character Creator and understand the whole animation pipeline?

Anders Mortensen: We started our journey in 2021 with Character Creator (CC4) and then combined it with iClone (iC8). Coming from a traditional 3D pipeline, we knew we had some challenges to solve when developing a pipeline for this project. We needed both flexible and fast tools for character animation as we would need around 4 minutes of motion capture data. After a few days of trial and error, we found several ways that we could effectively integrate both Character Creator and iClone into our pipeline.

Can you tell us about some of the latest iClone features used in Taube’s where-to-go music video?

Anders Mortensen: Of course! There are several features that we found very useful during the production process. Firstly, we used the Character Creator to create a 3D model to match our photoshoot dancer. This also made it much easier for us to start the next step in our pipeline, which was to transfer the movements into iClone.

“We had previously trialled other motion capture data preparation software, but in this case that wouldn’t have been an option due to the complexity of the project. The biggest advantage we found in using the Reallusion tools was the ability and variety of options to correct motion capture data in real-time software.”

Anders Mortensen | 3D/2D Generalist at relative.berlin

We used various new features of iClone 8 to set up and prepare the movements, such as motion correction, foot contact, flexible frame rate and other tools for optimisation. This was extremely useful to ensure that we could maintain a fast pipeline for the character animation without losing too much time preparing the movements for the subsequent steps.

Motion Layer System

Particularly handy for us was the newly added feature that allowed us to access our recorded data at both part level and bone level, so we could make even the smallest corrections to all bones. This allowed us to quickly ensure high quality optimisation in our pipeline.

Reach target integration: foot contact and correction

As we had a lot of shots where the feet interacted with the floor, this became an essential and reliable feature during production compared to manual correction. This project involved a lot of stomping on the floor, so this feature helped us a lot in fine-tuning the movements of the crazies.

Functions for flexible frame rates

When flexible frame rate was introduced in iClone 8, we were sure that this would be a perfect fit for our pipeline as we could now combine assets from different parts of the pipeline in one place instead of having to convert each individual asset. Most importantly, we could now process the recorded motion capture data and cloth simulations without any major issues and even see if there were any errors in real time.

The characters’ clothing played a major role in this project. Can you tell us what advantages the Reallusion tools offered you?

Anders Mortensen: Importing fabric simulations and checking for possible errors before moving on to the next step in the pipeline saved us a lot of time as we could bring everything together in one place. This part of the workflow also allowed us to customise the transaction data to achieve better and more attractive fabric simulation results. We recognised where there was an opportunity to get an extra ‘oomph’ or create extra space for the simulation to get more detail.

Another important point was the use of Smart Gallery, which allowed people involved in this step of the pipeline to easily share and update files without losing time to import/export.

We love the way you realise your ideas. Would you tell us a little about what we can expect from you in the near future?

Anders Mortensen: For the future we see ourselves in many different areas of the animation/media industry. As we gain more and more experience in character animation and motion capture, we are confident to take an even bigger step in that direction. We believe that the development of the Metaverse will create a huge demand in character development for avatars and areas such as digital fashion.

We are currently working with a major game manufacturer to deliver high quality animated characters for their products. As we constantly walk the fine line between aesthetics and new technology, we are confident that we will continue to keep our finger on the pulse and push the boundaries of what is possible in these exciting times.

Follow relative.berlin

Website: relative.berlin
Vimeo: vimeo.com/relativeberlin
Instagram: instagram.com/relative.berlin
Facebook: facebook.com/relative.berlin
Behance: behance.net/relativeberlin

The post Club culture, techno music and character animation combined with iClone & Character Creator first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

1. UI changes

Users can now customise their workspace and tools. Customising window layouts and using multiple modes in different 3D windows at the same time is now possible. In addition, your most frequently used tools can now be dragged out of the menu bars and placed freely on the screen.

2. Retopology improvements

Retopology is the process of simplifying the topology of a mesh to make it cleaner and easier to edit. New in version 11 are retopology “ghost points” that allow users to align their custom topology to a previously drawn topology across sewing relationships. This ensures that the vertices are aligned with the seams. In addition, the patch topology tool has been added, allowing users to quickly hide a uniform topology in rectangular or triangular patches with specified subdivisions.

3. Partial “freeze”

You can select a part of meshes with the brush tool so that these selected sections remain solidified during the simulation. This allows the user to keep the desired fold details in one area while designing other areas.

4. Clothes shopping

Clothes from the store can now be purchased or downloaded directly from Marvelous Designer (Windows only)

5. Changes to the animation user interface

The animation editor is now located at the bottom of the user interface. It now includes frame rate and playback options, allowing users to preview their garment animation at the desired frame rate before exporting.

You can find more information on the Marvelous Designer website

The post Marvelous Designer 11 released first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Marvelous Designer has been the top dog when it comes to modelling with fabric for years. The desired object is either modelled directly without any further additions (e.g. cushions, blankets, scarves, …) or draped and tailored on an avatar (clothing, assets, accessories, …). A lot has changed again in version 10:

Dynamic crease brush
In the sculpting area, fabrics can now be treated with a brush. The realistic-looking folds, creases and overlaps give the 3D model additional authenticity.

Auto-fitting
This new function can be used to automatically transfer and adjust patterns from one model to another.

Substance Integration

Material definitions from Adobe Substance can be imported into the substance collection or even dropped directly from Substance onto a substance in the 2D view of Marvelous Designer.

Other functions have also been improved. The most important ones include

– Addition of texture repeat type unified
– Tablet Pen / Pressure support
– Metalness & Alpha Maps (PBR material)

About Marvelous Designer

Marvelous Designer is a specialised software for everything to do with fabric and clothing. Modelling realistic clothing or generally “sewn” objects in 3D software is a particular challenge for 3D artists, which can be mastered much more efficiently with specialised tools. Like a virtual tailor, the user sews individual 2D fabric parts together in 3D space. Using the realistic simulation function, these can then be simulated true to life, including their material properties, either directly or on an avatar or an imported character, for example.
It is no coincidence that Marvelous Designer is an integral part of 3D workflows from companies such as EA, UBISOFT, Disney and DIGIC PICTURES.

Marvelous Designer is the sister software to CLO from the same company, which specialises in the design and production area of the clothing industry for the manufacture of real garments, while Marvelous Designer focuses mainly on 3D asset design in the visual entertainment industry. Some functions in CLO and Marvelous Designer have been developed differently depending on the target group.

More information about the new functions:
https://www.marvelousdesigner.com/learn/newfeature

Case studies from the industry:
https://www.marvelousdesigner.com/discover/cases

A 30-day trial version of Marvelous Designer is available. Information can be found on the homepage:
https://www.marvelousdesigner.com/

The post New functions in Marvelous Designer 10 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.