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.

The open-source rigging framework mGear has released version 5.0 Beta 6, which now supports Autodesk Maya 2026. If you’re in the business of building rigs instead of building excuses, the new release offers a handful of updates aimed at character riggers and TDs navigating Maya’s ongoing evolution.

Maya 2026 support is live

The main headline feature is compatibility with Maya 2026—which may not sound glamorous, but let’s be honest: rigging tools that lag behind software updates tend to cause more drama than your characters. With Beta 6, mGear stays current, reducing future pipeline headaches and ensuring your rigs don’t explode—at least not due to version mismatches.

Shifter gets minor updates

The Shifter system—mGear’s modular rigging system—receives component updates, though the exact changes are not detailed in the release notes. Artists should expect refinements, but as always, test before plugging into production. Stability is still the rigging department’s love language.

Guide templates: more templates, more reuse

Version 5.0 Beta 6 introduces new guide templates and an updated naming convention. Guide templates (used for building rig hierarchies) now come with tweaks that help with standardisation and reuse. If you’ve ever inherited a rig named ctrl_final_finalFIXED2.mb, this is your redemption arc.

New logic in the picker for selecting control icons

mGear’s picker tool—used for selecting rig controls via GUI—now includes new selection logic. Though the update doesn’t go into detail, it likely enhances how users interact with control icons inside the picker UI. Expect improved usability, or at the very least, fewer clicks and curses.

Still in beta: test before flying

As the name clearly warns, mGear 5.0 Beta 6 is still in beta. That means: tread carefully. These features, while promising, are not guaranteed to behave in production environments. Artists and TDs should conduct thorough tests before integrating the new version into live projects. It’s rigging, not roulette.

Price & availability

As always, mGear remains free and open-source, available via GitHub. Compatibility with Maya 2026 gives it a timely advantage, especially for studios planning a software switch-over.

---

In summary: mGear 5.0 Beta 6 brings compatibility with Maya 2026, improves guide template usability, refines Shifter components, and tweaks the picker’s logic. All changes are incremental and aimed at making the rigging workflow more efficient—assuming you’re brave enough to beta test in the first place.

The post Gear 5.0 Beta 6: Rigging Tool Gets 2026-Ready first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.