CLO Virtual Fashion releases Marvelous Designer 2024.0
Posted on 29 February 2024. Scroll down for the Marvelous Designer 2024.0.173 update.
CLO Virtual Fashion has released Marvelous Designer 2024.0, a sizeable update to the digital clothing design software.
Key features include support for soft body simulation, a new Everywear system to automate the process of optimizing clothing for games and real-time use, and a live link to Unreal Engine.
The release marks a change of version numbering for the software: under the previous numbering scheme, it would have been Marvelous Designer 13.0.
Convert 2D patterns into animated 3D clothing
Widely used by games and animation studios, Marvelous Designer enables artists to design 3D garments in the same way as real-world clothes, by stitching virtual 2D pattern parts together.
Users can import an animated character model, drape clothing over it, then export the result back to a 3D application in Alembic, FBX or USD format, as an OBJ file sequence, or as a Maya cache, PC2 or MDD cache.
As well as simulating the effect of gravity on a garment, it is possible to create wind animations.
Marvelous Designer 2024.0: soft body simulation improves clothing-to-skin contacts
New features in Marvelous Designer 2024.0 include support for soft body simulation.
The implementation is intended to improve the realism of cloth-to-skin contacts, so it’s a simple skin elasticity system rather than a fully fledged simulation toolset.
It currently only works for Marvelous Designer’s default avatars, and animations with skin deformations can currently only be exported as Alembic caches
Other changes to the physics features include support for multiple controllers for wind effects.
Automatic avatar conversion and clothing optimization streamline import and export
There are also useful changes when integrating Marvelous Designer into a production pipeline.
When importing a 3D character from other DCC software, Marvelous Designer can now automatically convert it to one of its native avatars, matching the default rig structure.
It is also now possible to scale custom avatars manually when importing in FBX format as well as OBJ format.
For export, Marvelous Designer’s new EveryWear system, shown in the video above, streamlines the process of optimizing clothing, particularly for use in games or real-time applications.
It automates key tasks, including fitting and rigging a garment to an avatar, baking textures and creating LODs.
New live link to Unreal Engine
In addition, the update introduces Marvelous Designer LiveSync, a live link to Unreal Engine.
It removes the need to export data manually when using Unreal Engine as a real-time renderer, making it possible to preview changes to a garment inside Marvelous Designer in real time.
The link is still a work in progress, and does not currently work on macOS, or fully support fur, or accessories like earrings. You can find a list of current limitations in the online manual.
It is also now possible to record animation directly from the Marvelous Designer viewport, with users able to export animations of 3D characters at up to 1080p resolution.
Other new features
Other changes include a new Puckering system, which generates fine wrinkles in 3D clothing: most obviously, along seams, but it works along any internal line segment in a pattern part.
There are also a number of smaller improvements to workflow when creating garments, adjusting topology, setting up prop collisions, and exporting data in USD and Alembic format.
Updated 26 April 2024: CLO Virtual Fashion has released Marvelous Designer 2024.0.173.
The update introduces new USD workflows for Unreal Engine 5.4, the latest version of the game engine, making it possible to export simulation data to UE5 in USD format.
The Marvelous Designer library also now includes 18 avatars corresponding to MetaHuman body types, making it easier to create clothing for MetaHuman characters in Unreal Engine.
Since we originally posted this story, CLO Virtual Fashion has raised the price of node-locked Enterprise subscriptions from $1,700/year to $1,900/year.
Pricing and availability
Marvelous Designer 2024.0 is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+. It is rental-only.
Personal subscriptions cost $39/month or $280/year. Enterprise subscriptions cost $199/month or $1,900/year for a node-locked license, and $2,000/year for floating licenses.
Read an overview of the new features in Marvelous Designer 2024.0 on the product website
Read a full list of new features in Marvelous Designer 2024.0 in the online release notes
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