California Apparel News

In “Ratatouille,” Disney/Pixar’s latest computergenerated feature film, about rodents in Paris, the animation technology used reached a new plateau, bringing characters—and their costumes—to life with a stark realism rarely seen before.

The technology used in the film drew interest from the apparel industry as designers start to look to animation to build their own garments.

In fact, there’s already collaboration occurring between industries. The garments created in “Ratatouille,” were created using an apparel CAD system from PAD System Technologies. Emeryville, Calif.–based Pixar Animation Studios used its own animation engine to bring the garments to life.

In “Ratatouille,” clothing is not a stagnant accessory but a contributing asset to the movie’s quality level, said the artists who worked on the movie.

“The characters [in ’Ratatouille’] have more clothing with more layers and more motion than ever before,” explained Christine Waggoner, simulation supervisor for Pixar, which produced the movie with Pixar’s parent company, The Walt Disney Co. “For us to be able to create these [characters’] outfits with double-breasted jackets with buttons, an apron and a pair of pants all layered together with a chef’s toque on top of their hair, it was really something.”

PAD Vice President Kristine Gloviak agreed. “Even in many of the reviews, critics were mentioning how impressive the clothing looked, how when the clothes get wet, you can see the reaction to water.”

PAD’s Master Pattern Maker and Made-to-Measure software have been on the cutting edge of the 3-D technology being adopted in apparel production. The programs provide a way to visualize garments before they are made, reducing iterations and sample-making costs.

Other technology vendors—such as Optitex, Tukatech and Shapely Shadow—are looking to animation and simulation technology as a way to help reduce lead times and produce better-fitting garments.

In Version 10 of Optitex’s 3-D Runway Designer program, designers can take a 2-D pattern made in a CAD program and drape it over a 3-D virtual mannequin and set it in motion down a virtual runway. The software simulates the folds and bends of the material to reflect a real-life scenario and gives patternmakers and designers an idea of the finished product.

Tukatech’s e-fit Simulator also sets virtual fit models in motion to simulate cloth dynamics using real physical properties of cloth, including flexibility, stretch, shearing, weight and air resistance. The aim is to visualize fit and work out the kinks before a sample is made.

Tukatech Chief Executive Officer Ram Sareen said it’s not just the motion aspect that is important. “The exact shape and body measurements are equally important,” he said. Some of the company’s customers are doing all of their pre-production using e-fit, not even making a physical sample. In other industries, Boeing is doing the same thing with its new “Dreamliner” aircraft, building airplanes virtually and going right to the hangar without building a physical prototype.

Tukatech’s e-fit system can also test for dynamic friction, that is, portions of a garment that ride up, gathering or buckling against the body and creating an unflattering appearance.

Malibu, Calif.–based Shapely Shadow’s new Fast Fit software uses photographic images rather than computer-generated ones to bring a more realistic image before designers and buyers. The system uses a stop-motion type of technology that takes hundreds of still images and puts them together to create a single file, which can be e-mailed between parties.

In another venture, OptiTex is working with Draper, Utah–based DAZ 3-D to bring a clothing engine to DAZ 3-D Studio, a free software package for artists, game producers and animators.

Users can choose from a library of 3-D figures and clothing and bring the clothing to life with the ability to quickly alter the clothing’s fabric type, garment size and style variations.

“Historically, there’s never been a virtualclothing solution that has provided users this level of realistic interaction with 3-D garments, nor has such realism ever been accompanied by a straightforward interface like what is available within the DAZ|Studio 3-D software,” said Dan Farr, president of DAZ 3-D. (The Dynamic Clothing Control plug-in is available for free at studio.daz3d.com.) Though simulators and animation tools are impressive, the apparel industry is somewhat slow to adopt such tools, explained Optitex President Yoram Burg. “Like it was with regular 3-D, it will take some time to adopt,” he said.

Burg said the industry is still taking in regular 3-D and technology providers’ need to weigh the requirements of companies. “Animation cannot be achieved on the fly,” said Burg. “There is no single computer that is capable of handling all the calculations involved. That’s why it takes Sony four years rather than four months to make ’Spiderman 4.’”

But Jason Delevan, marketing manager for Tukatech, said animation is a viable option, not a gimmick for the apparel industry.

“Animation is an integral part of fit testing for apparel production and a soon-to-be reality in merchandising and retailing,” said Delevan. “With the advent of Web 2.0 and greater support for 3-D formats on the Internet, we should be seeing a lot of animated content on the Web very soon, and I think retailers will jump at the chance to show their garments in motion down a runway, rather than simply showing a picture—and so will their customers. In the future, I see animation serving the same purpose for the apparel industr y’s garment prototypes as I see in other industries’ prototypes. A door on a car needs to open and close, so we test this on the computer to make sure everything is aligned properly.

“I firmly believe that computers are the way to bring the apparel industry from a state of waste, tolerances and compromises to a state of precision and efficiency in production. We’ve already seen it with computerized patternmaking. 3-D prototyping, complete with a fit model that can do the things a real fit model can, is the next step.”