Visual Effects Designer
in:flux digital
los angeles, CA 90066
stratosphere@comcast.net

What are the current limits - technically and financially - for digital clothes both in feature films and virtual fashion shows?

Cloth animation is tricky. Even in the world of high-end computer graphics it is difficult to get it right.
Currently our possibilities are limited mostly by the amount of computing power, not by the underlying mathematical simulation model. To drape the fabric realistically around the mannequin, its tension, mass and friction must be calculated at each time interval. Stretching, bending, flapping - whatever the interaction with the body requires.... all the mathematics for these processes are basically solved, it is just a matter of calculating them very quickly - or even in real time. Computing power and the connected costs are the actual limits for a realistic simulation.

The computationally most expensive part is the collision detection between the body of the digital mannequin/ actor and the garment. At each interval ( 1/24 sec. in film) it must be calculated if the fabric hits the surface of the body.

Is it on this side or on the other side of the body's boundaries?

If the calculation misses we see the fabric penetrate the body which is obviously a mistake.

So the difficult part is the dynamic animation, the cloth's interaction with its environment and the body, not the rendering of the surface qualities like color, roughness of the texture etc., which is relatively easy...

more information about visual effects and clothing>>>

biography>>>

credit list>>>>