CLO Virtual Fashion ships Marvelous Designer 4

CLO Virtual Fashion has released Marvelous Designer 4, the latest version of its pattern-based 3D clothing design tool, adding FBX import and the option to automatically generate an all-quad mesh.

Increasingly widely used by games and animation studios, the software enables artists to design garments in the same way as real-world clothes, by stitching virtual pattern parts together.

Users can import a character model in OBJ or Collada format to drape clothing over, then export the result back to a 3D application as an OBJ, or in the Maya cache, PC2 or MDD point cache formats.

New import and export features, more pattern design tools
The new features in Marvelous Designer 4 further smooth workflows for entertainment artists, adding the option to import mesh and skeletal data – although not animations – in FBX format.

There is also a new Quadrangulate option to convert the mesh Marvelous Designer generates to quads.

The demo shows a few residual tris, and the edge flow isn’t great, but comments on the CLO site imply that you can improve it manually.

Other new features expand Marvelous Designer’s pattern-based workflows, including symmetry, 1-to-N sewing, ‘basting’ (virtual tacking stitches), layer cloning and the option to flip normals or wrap direction.

You can see a full list on CLO’s website via the link below.

Pricing and availability
Marvelous Designer 4 is available for Windows XP or later and Mac OS X 10.7 or later. According to the FAQs, there is a Linux version for enterprise users, but it isn’t mentioned in the system requirements.

A permanent licence costs $550, or there are monthly and annual subscription options.

Read a full list of new features in Marvelous Designer 4 (Includes video demos)