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CGI Fashion Film Brings Haute Couture To A Virtual Junkyard

Employing software used in Hollywood movies and video games, Thomas Traum digitally recreates a signature look from Christopher Raeburn's SS-2015 collection.

Still from the film

Thomas Traum has just released a new fashion film for Christopher Raeburn's SS-2015 collection. The collection, called REMADE, was inspired by the US Airforce's Arizona 'boneyard," a graveyard for retired airplanes that wait in arid conditions to either be reused or broken down for parts.

The film, titled Meridian, is set in such a boneyard, but a completely digitally-rendered one. "We wanted to explore the possibilities of 3D-modeling clothes in a high fashion context and make a virtual version of a complete 3D fashion look," says Thomas Eberwein, founder of design agency Thomas Traum.

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Still from the film

The resulting CGI film looks like a cut-scene from a video game and shows a model falling through the air while sheets and other paraphernalia from the plane graveyard fly towards him to form his garments—a recreation of a signature look from Raeburn's collection.

"Our idea was to take the viewer on a journey, from the deserted plane yard, where planes are abandoned and left to rot, straight onto the runway of a fashion show. So there is a surprising transformation from the military waste and wasteland to a powerful and determined human wearing this beautiful and intricate garment," notes Eberwein.

The process behind the film was quite complex involving face-scanning the model and 3D-scanning the clothes—along with the original patterns that Raeburn provided—so they could be re-modeled virtually. "I always wanted to try to completely replicate a detailed 3D garment and make it walk on a model," says Eberwein.

"We weren't looking for a photo-realistic representation necessarily, but for a way to replicate a look in 3D to high detail, which would open lots of possibilities for animating cloth in future films."

The model and clothes IRL

To accurately replicate the textures of the clothes they used a piece of software called Marvellous Designer, which specializes in modeling the intricacies of clothing using a pattern-based approach. It's been used in films like The Hobbit and The Adventures of Tin Tin and Assassin’s Creed and Metal Gear Solid titles to give digitally-rendered clothing accuracy and volume. "Marvelous Designer allows you to re-create garments from 2D fashion patterns and then fit them to a virtual body, so a process very similar to the way of making clothes in real life," explains Eberwein.

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3D scan of the clothes

With this type of software now available to anyone, surely it won't be long before we see an Oculus Rift fashion film where you (for good or ill) are the model. But hey, at least you'd be wearing fresher threads without paying for 'em. Check out the film below.

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