Cloth and clothes in 3D

During the last few months, I have been working on finding a new way to produce photoreal images of clothes and other products made of cloth, such as furniture. Traditional workflows have given decent results, but the production has been really time consuming. As a result, traditional photo has been a more cost effective solution in most situations.

However, after a lot of trial and error, I have come up with a workflow that combines a number of different techniques. The result is pretty good, and the time (cost) to produce images has been cut significantly and is now comparable to that of traditional photo.

The biggest benefit from using 3D instead of photo for clothing images is probably the possibility to easily try different colors, materials, prints, poses etc. It is easier to get clean images, especially if one want clothes only without a model. And the client don´t even need a physical sample of the product to start producing marketing material! Now one can launch a collection using photoreal images for the web, print, ads etc months before the first physical samples show up.

Here is a hoodie, with a pretty simple pattern, made of heavy cotton:



A slightly more complicated product with a more complex pattern, made of soft shell:

A comparison between different cloths and how they drape differently. A "stiffer", heavier cloth compared to thinner cotton:



Welcome to my new blog!

Welcome to my new blog! After 16 years in the 3D visualisation and graphical design business, it is time for me to share some of the possibilities and workflows that I am working with on a daily basis. I will try not to be to technical. I will rather focus on how one can use 3D-images and visual effects in marketing, information etc. and how one can make big savings by using these workflows compared to using a more traditional workflow with photos for example.

Here is a first image I did a few years ago, just to get a glimpse of what I am talking about. Taking photos of cars is one of those tasks that is really challenging using a traditional camera. A car is so reflective that it is really hard to establish a good lightning, even in a studio. A lot of post work is needed to delete all reflections of different elements from the studio, such as the camera itself, lightning rigs etc. In the digital 3D studio however, one can easily get clean results with nice reflections that show only what you want to be shown. Further, one can easily "paint" with the lights to enhance shapes and surfaces. And, you really don´t need to ship the car and crew, actually, the car doesn´t even need to exist!