Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium | Keno Leon

Marvelous designer is a 3d modeling program for clothes and fabric, as a budding fashion designer and tech guy which loves CAD it is all kinds of exciting…

The Blind Test:

Without reading the manual install Marvelous Designer ( MD for short) and make a piece of digital cloth:

The gist of MD seems to be building a pattern (on the right) and then letting it flow on top of a manequin.

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Sewing

A poncho is basically a squarish piece of cloth with a hole, so the pattern is not that hard to make, moving onto more complex shapes, let’s try sewing pieces of fabric into something more dressy.

A lot is happening here, so let me try to explain; if you were to cut along the seams your current top or shirt an lay it down on a table, you would end up with something like the pattern on the right, from there you need to sew in MD the correct sides and then place the pattern around your avatar on the left, everything comes together once you run the simulation:

<a href="https://medium.com/media/30e8504976504f78a81e7f72b1097fdf/href">https://medium.com/media/30e8504976504f78a81e7f72b1097fdf/href</a>

You now have a 3d model concept and a pattern for your clothes. It should be said that MD is not at this moment a tool for the garment industry, that is you can’t print the patterns and cut and sew them, but it is a great tool for validating concepts and getting a head start on real patterns, plus a great tool for CG Artists.

Everything else

There are a number of helpful tools for creating and refining your designs, things like different fabrics, buttons, pleats and on and on, here I tried making a simple hoodie with graphics and some extras :

Not only clothes

MD is not limited to clothes, you can also make virtual soft goods and footwear provided you supply some 3D last or shape for the fabric to simulate on top.

Diapper Bag or SIx Pack Carrier ?

Not so good.

There are a few aspects of MD that I think detract from the whole experience, the documentation in particualr is not very good and having used quite a few CAD and 3D Modeling programs, the UI/UX is something you battle with.

Another big drawback is the pricing and segmentation, a very similar program clo3D (by the same company) is aimed at the fashion industry rather than the gaming/animation industry, there are enterprise, and monthly subscription plans for both and it all feels very confusing and unnecessary.

Takeaway.

Marvelous Designer is an accesible and unique 3D modeling program for life like fabric that also resembles real life garment construction. It’s quirky, and falls short from being a professional tool for the fashion design industry, but for the CG Artist it is the defacto solution for clothes and fabric, for the designer on the other hand clo3d or other more serious and expensive alternatives might be better, yet it could prove a valuable tool for validating and prototyping designs.

About the Author :

Born Eugenio Noyola Leon (Keno) I am a Designer,Web Developer/programmer, Artist and Inventor, currently living in Mexico City, you can find me at www.k3no.com

Marvelous Designer for fashion design was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Marvelous Designer for fashion design

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