THE ART OF 3D FASHION

TRADITIONAL AND 3D ARTIST ANDRIY BILICHENKO SHARES THE SECRETS OF CREATING CG CLOTHING

I received my education as a traditional painter and am fluent in oil painting, drawing and traditional sculpture. I have always tried to do things that surprise and amaze the public, and have always looked for tools that help me in this. Of course, I turned to modern digital imaging techniques. Before I was fascinated by modern technology, I was inspired by the paintings of artists from the past, with their attention to detail in clothing. My childhood was spent in museums and carefully studying fashion magazines. There, I realised that clothes are not just a way to cover up our nakedness, they are a way to express yourself, to express your attitude, to find supporters and outline the boundaries of your world. When creating 3D clothes, I strive to express the image of the character who will wear them. Creating clothes is one of the most interesting 3D graphics tasks and at the same time it is one of the most technically challenging. In order to convey the infinite variety of fabrics, styles of clothing, small folds, dynamics, how it develops in free flight, you need to be at the peak of technology because it’s a complex and resource-intensive task, even for powerful computers. I like to start modelling 3D clothes in Houdini. Only in Houdini do I have complete control over what happens during the simulation, with opportunities to influence various aspects of the motion of 3D fabric during animation, and the ability to make an endless number of movements for the same garment. It is very important to be able to experiment at this stage. Of course, not everything is smooth in the creation of 3D clothes, there are many limitations associated with the fact that we always want to create something not just good, but incredible, and for such ideas we need very powerful computers that may not yet exist. But it seems to me that we are still at the beginning of this path and great achievements await us.