OptiTex's Daz 3-D Draping Tool Released for Mac OS
Israel-based OptiTex recently released a new version of its Dynamic Cloth Engine plug-in for Mac OS and updated its version of the Dynamic Cloth Engine plug-in for Windows, enabling it to support 64-bit architecture.
Developed in partnership with Draper, Utah–based Daz 3D, a developer of 3-D models and software, the Dynamic Cloth Engine allows designers to drape “virtual” cloth while using OptiTex’s 3-D patternmaking solution. Users can select the fabric and alter the size and style. Designers can see how the virtual fabric will drape and fall in the real world. According to DAZ 3-D programmers, the DCC plug-in allows users to “control gravity [and] add wind.”
OptiTex first partnered with Daz 3-D in 2007, when Daz—which has a following among 3-D content creators, animators and hobbyists—approached OptiTex with the idea of giving its users a tool to help render and drape fabric in CAD.
“Daz [was] looking to offer their users a dynamic cloth engine, a cloth engine that drapes and renders independently of the subject, a move that, at the time, was revolutionary,” said OptiTex President Yorum Burg. “OptiTex developed a plug-in of its 3-D dynamic clothing solution, which was included as part of the version 2.0 release of Daz Studio, the free 3-D art software.”
According to Burg, the solution allows users to load a “real-world cloth simulation, including the ability to quickly alter the clothing’s fabric type, garment size and style variations.”
With the addition of the plug-in for Mac, the cloth simulation and other CAD components are now compatible with Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems.—Sarah Wolfson
