3D Design - Module 2 - Bodies

Welcome to Module 2. We'll take a look at avatars, what they are. We'll also talk about some of the partners that you might find in the body space. So your 3D solutions will definitely have lots of options for bodies, but there are also a lot of other resources that you can utilize within your 3D journey to help you get the bodies you need to get the results that you want. As we dive deeper into that, we'll talk about parametric bodies and avatars in your 3D solution. We'll also talk about digital dress forms that are very, very helpful and a good move if you already have custom dress forms that you're using in the physical world. We'll also talk about body scanning, which is an ever-growing and constantly developing field that has lots of great options and things that will allow you to really take your implementation out of the park. Some of the avatars that are available are so very, very realistic looking that we lose our sense of looking at a body versus a digital form. One of the things to remember when you're looking at avatars versus a human body especially is that avatars are solid. So think of your avatar as being more of a statue or mannequin than a human body. Avatars do not have soft tissue yet. That is something that everyone in the industry has been working toward because it's something we need. But don't let that stop you from starting your 3D journey because the options that are available with bodies today are so amazing that it's barely even a roadblock at all, but definitely something you need to be aware of. As we talk about avatars having solid bodies, one of the most important things to note, especially if you're working in the compression or shapewear garment space, is that the avatar needs to have the correct body for that garment. The shapewear is not going to adjust the avatar's body at all because, again, it's solid. So, uh, Imagine putting your shapewear on the Venus de Milo. You might get a great image, but it's not going to change the shape of that statue at all. So even beyond the shapewear space, you want to make sure your avatar has the shape of the body that you want with the foundation garments already on. Now, this may seem a bit strange because in our world today, we don't really wear the same sort of foundation garments that we have traditionally. But if we look back at our industry and how it has evolved over time, foundation garments built into the shape of a body, especially a dress form, was always the standard. So if we take a look at what a lady looked like in her foundation garments around, you know, mid-20th century, and then we look at the dress forms that we still use sometimes today, unless you have modernized— I love my Alvedon forms— but a lot of our old standard types of forms still reflect bodies based on those standards from the middle of the 20th century, uh, with the foundation garments already in place. That's because as you're draping a garment, you want to drape on top of that. The same way if you're doing a live fitting, your model will wear the foundation garments that are already appropriate for the garment she will wear. You want to do the same things with your avatars so that you're getting that one-to-one comparison. Let's talk a little bit about the possibilities. With avatars and digital bodies. Digital bodies are a game changer. Uh, the same comparison I made with our virtual simulations versus our physical garments with being sort of similar to that MP3 versus CD relationship, you have the same thing with bodies. Uh, in our offices today, we have dress forms that sometimes need to be shared. You don't have a dress form for every size or standard that you may have for every designer or person working on your team. Digital bodies give you the option to do that. Within one system, a user can have every single body that they may use within your organization. Another great thing about bodies and avatars within your 3D solution is they all have various animation capabilities. And these are great for things like presentation or fit. If you want to see the avatar walking down a runway, a lot of solutions make this possible. Or if you want to check the fit of a garment by having the avatar move or sit in a certain position, these are also things that are possible and give you really, really quick access to some of the things that you would get in a live fit session. Industry partners like Alvanon have taken their physical dress forms that they have customized for lots of brands and also made those available in digital form. So today in industry, we will have our custom dress form in our brand office, and that's something that our designers and fit technicians can take advantage of. But then we may also have that same form available for our factories so that they can work and fit samples as they're working on them as well. Well, you can do the same thing with 3D, only it's easier. Now you have digital bodies. You can get a license for certain bodies for your factories or brands, and have that in your system. So you also then have the ability to take a 3D simulation in your 3D solution and compare that to what you're seeing with a physical sample once those physical samples come in a little bit later in your process. Another great area is body scanning. There's so many cool things happening in that space, and body scanning is being used for so many different things. It's really a way to take, uh, advantage of the data your customers are willing to share with you to create better product for them. So now we're going to take a little bit of a deeper dive into the parametric avatars, fit forms that you may have to replicate your physical forms or your digital forms, and also some more things that you might want to know about body scanning if that's something you decide to do. As you engage your 3D solution providers, you're going to want to have a great understanding of how their parametric avatars are working, what sort of avatar editing capabilities they have, to make sure that you can create the bodies that you need for your team. Uh, the avatar editing tools can be great, but you also want to make sure that as you edit bodies, they create shapes that are accurate and reflect your consumer. We have to remember, when it comes to digital bodies, just like with physical bodies, circumference measurements don't always tell the full story. So as you're editing the measurements of an avatar in a 3D system, make sure you're also getting the correct shape that you need. So you're gonna wanna be able to adjust things like the posture and the distribution of mass around the body. If you go the route of working with a digital dress form that matches a custom dress form that you've already had made, or if you just acquire digital dress forms from a solution provider like Alvinon, you wanna make sure that you understand that there is a licensing component that goes along with it. Within a 3D solution, the parametric avatars that you're able to edit are a little bit less restricted. But when you have purchased a digital dress form, they want to make sure that those forms cannot be replicated or copied outside of the agreement that they have with you to provide those dress forms. So make sure you do understand that there is a licensing component that will go along with it for you and all of your partners that you may want to share those dress forms with. So definitely talk about that with wherever you're going to get your digital dress forms. Okay, let's take a deeper look at body scanning. As I've said before, body scanning is something that we, uh, are really taking advantage of in a lot of different spaces. But when we're looking to scan bodies specifically for use in apparel fitting and design, we want to make sure that that body scan is the correct shape, uh, that we're going to need to move forward. So one of the things that I recommend, again, just like with our dress forms that have the body shape with foundation garments already in place, you want to do the same thing with your body scans. So if you're in a formalwear space, you may want to make sure the bodies that you're scanning have the appropriate undergarments for whatever type of formalwear garment you're going to make. If you think about something that might be strapless, the shape for the body may need to be a little bit different. I love details, and I know this is all minutiae, but definitely things to consider because remember, those avatars are of a solid body. So whatever shaping or flattering you may get with the corseting in a strapless garment isn't going to work on a digital body the same way because it's not going to compress or constrict. A great thing to do if you plan on using garments across categories, uh, and just a good practice in general. Uh, if you're going to have a fit model scanned or your customer scanned, go ahead and see if you can have the body scanned with different foundation garments on, because then you also get an idea of how the body is changing and what that customer likes to look like, uh, under the garments they put over the foundation garments. One of the rapid areas of growth in industry right now is design in the extended sizes space. Uh, extended sizes present, uh, a lot of interesting challenges when it comes to design and grading. And we see a lot of those challenges also moving over into the digital body space as well. As we deal with extended sizes and there's more body mass, uh, and different distributions of that body mass, we also again have to return back to this idea that the bodies that we're working with are solid. And what does that do for your plans moving forward. So one of the things to note, because these bodies do have different limitations than bodies in the physical world, one of the things that I've seen a lot with extended sizes is a little morphing or changing of the shape of the thigh, particularly because if you want to simulate pants, you need to be able to make sure the pant can sit correctly through the rise. So sometimes they will, in creating those bodies in plus sizes, reduce certain areas of the thigh to make sure that you can still simulate the pant where you need it to. And if that's something that's happening, and if you're someone in the extended sizes space, make sure you understand what accommodations are being made to create a successful simulation so that you also understand what impact that might have on the fit of your garments. Okay, so let's talk about some of the solutions that are available in the body space. There are many of them. I've, I've mentioned Alvinon a few times, but then you also have Human Solutions that creates bodies, avatars, and physical dress forms so that you can have that 1-to-1 comparison. There are also solutions for scanning like SciStream and Human Solutions as well that have body scanners so that you can scan a customer and create a digital avatar from that body. There are also a lot of new solutions that are coming onto the market very, very regularly that allow you to scan using photographs on a mobile phone. And this allows customers to have a really personal experience with their body scan. Now, you have to remember that consumers don't have the 360-degree relationship with their body that maybe a fit technician or a designer has. We've never seen the back of us, and we only see ourselves through pictures or through mirrors. So when you have customers going into having their body scanned, sometimes it can be a bit intimidating. And when they see the results of that scan, you know, they're seeing themselves in a new way for the very first time. To be able to stand outside of themselves and see a 360-degree representation is new. So make sure you approach that with care if you do want to take your body scanning model to your end consumers. Our fit models are a little less bashful, but our consumers, it's new for them. Alright, that was Module 2 on bodies. There's definitely always a lot more to talk about with any of these topics, and this is a great opportunity to stay engaged and figure out what's going on in the body space. So keep your ear to the ground. So again, thank you. That was Module 2, and in Module 3, we're gonna talk about one of my favorite things, fabric. Thank you so much.