We are all aware that the fashion industry is a significant polluter and resource abuser. It also generates a lot of waste throughout the design phase due to excessive sampling.
Software for 3D clothing design exists to assist you in creating a more sustainable fashion business by eliminating wasteful practices and carbon emissions. Using a cutting-edge software solution will save you time, money, and resources while also assisting you in doing good for the environment.
You’ll be able to save money on sample costs while still producing high-quality designs. The majority of today’s 3D design platforms make it simple to share your creations with others and work with your team in a collaborative environment.
This article shares a list of the best 3D clothing design software and what makes each unique.
CLO and Marvelous Designer
Platform: Windows and Mac
CLO and Marvelous Designer are two distinct programs created by the same company. They’re so similar that it’s worth discussing them together. However, there are some important distinctions to be aware of, which we shall discuss in this section.
The robust simulation engines of CLO and Marvelous Designer enable you to develop designs with endless layers and complex features. Create a variety of outfits, ranging from a basic shirt to technical outerwear with intricate pattern pieces and construction.
The programs aren’t just for designing clothes. You can make anything out of fabric, such as hats, purses, wallets, lingerie, swimwear, and more. Both CLO and Marvelous Designer can precisely simulate drape-sensitive textiles such as lightweight wovens and jerseys with various material characteristics.
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With only a few clicks, you can see your creations come to life! Users of any skill level or specialization may immediately become acquainted with the straightforward and user-friendly interface of the software.
One advantage of CLO and Marvelous Designer is that they are cross-platform, which means you can use them on either a PC or a Mac.
CLO and Marvelous Designer remain some of the least costly alternatives for individual designers. You may obtain a CLO license for $50 per month. Meanwhile, Marvelous Designer’s personal license is $39 per month. They also provide student discounts and different pricing for organizations that require several licenses.
The differences between CLO and Marvelous Designer
CLO and Marvelous Designer are intended for use in the fashion and entertainment sectors, respectively.
Marvelous Designer has CG-friendly tools like a UV editor, Sculpt mode, and Remeshing that CLO does not have. On the other hand, CLO allows you to change the size of your avatar and supports DXF-AAMA (drawing) files.
Marvelous Designer may be used for several purposes in the realm of 3D garment creation. It is especially effective in circumstances when the attention to detail and quality of the garment are critical. The more complicated the design, the more time Marvelous Designer can save you.
The goal of Marvelous Designer is to maintain everything digital or online. You can use the software in conjunction with 3D programs such as 3ds Max, Maya, Pose, and DAZ Studio.
CLO caters to fashion designers by allowing them to export their designs into the real world. If you need to export your digital garments and send them to manufacturing, you may do so with CLO. It essentially tackles the problem of quickly producing mockups rather than physically creating them, which is costly and time-consuming.
The interactive render is one of CLO’s best features. It is an excellent tool if you’re a fashion designer who doesn’t have any other 3D applications or 3D external renderers, but you need to present your clothes interactively.
To summarize, CLO is intended for fashion designers who want to make their garments in real life. Meanwhile, Marvelous Designer is for 3D artists who want to keep their designs in the digital space.
Browzwear
Platform: Windows and Mac
With a comprehensive portfolio of easy-to-use tools, Browzwear delivers the power of 3D to fashion design, development, marketing, and collaboration.
Browzwear is a pioneer of 3D fashion software. It includes modules like Vstitcher, Lotta, Stylezone, and Fabric Analyzer for designing, fitting, retailing, and displaying the product. Each module promotes collaboration and reduces the number of designs and SKUs that are sampled but never used.
Browzwear is also cross-platform, meaning it works on both Windows and Mac computers. One of the few drawbacks of Browzwear is that it is mainly offered to corporate employees. However, they also have an Indie Program for individual designers.
Let’s review the most important modules of Browzwear.
Vstitcher
VStitcher is one of the top 3D fashion design software in the industry. Designs may be created using size ranges, graphics, fabrics, trimmings, colors, and photorealistic 3D rendering. Designers, technical professionals, and pattern makers may build designs and enhance them with features like the true-motion fit, pattern modification, grading, and tech packs.
Its 3D rendering feature lets you see your changes in real-time or produce a photorealistic 3D picture of your garments for the most exact material simulation.
Lotta
Lotta is a patternless styling tool that makes it simple to develop new designs with an unlimited choice of design lines, graphics, materials, trimmings, colors, and more.
You can build new styles using validated blocks and transform patterns, logos, and other items from 2D to 3D with ease. Even if you are new to 3D, Lotta makes it simple!
Assume your team does styling rather than product development or pattern making. With Lotta, they may rapidly change colors, materials, and artwork and use pre-defined shapes without cutting or sewing digitally.
Stylezone
Stylezone is a unique web and mobile collaboration tool that allows all stakeholders to engage at every level of the process, from design to merchandising.
Stylezone is a cloud-based platform for exhibiting and exchanging 3D prototypes. Stylezone, the merchandising arm of Browzwear’s entire digital workflow system, allows you to rotate, zoom, move, and interact with 3D clothing from design through merchandising.
Fabric Analyzer
The Fabric Analyzer is a sophisticated device that allows users to assess all of a fabric’s physical qualities, from thickness to stretch and bend. The gathered data is subsequently converted into a visual picture in seconds. Data is immediately imported into VStitcher or other 3D software.
Optitex
Platform: Windows
Optitex offers a holistic approach to fashion design that can allow you to set new standards for time-to-market, on-demand manufacturing, cost efficiency, and automation on a global scale.
Like Browzwear, Optitex has a series of workflows, or modules, which we will explore next. The central piece is their 2D/3D Pattern Design Software, but other exciting tools are worth mentioning. You can find here a complete list of all Optitex products.
2D/3D Pattern Design Software
Optitex’s cutting-edge Pattern Design Software helps you to create faster and deliver better goods for your customers. It combines robust 2D design with realistic 3D visualization in a single platform to meet the demands of both the clothing and technical textile sectors.
The elegant user interface is fully configurable, and the workstation maximizes your design space.
Optitex 2D drives your pattern and clothing design process. You can create, reposition, and open darts and pleats, including multi-pleats, in seconds.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could easily convert your base or sample patterns into various sizes? You can do that with Optitex 2D Pattern Grading. It allows you to generate several sizes for a single clothing design quickly.
Optitex 2D’s Tech Pack Essentials helps you quickly create customized documents and view model data. Imagine no more long, error-prone operations and all your model data front and center, including design, pattern pieces, grading, stitching, and more.
Also, making markers with Optitex 2D is quicker and smarter. Creating a marker file, nesting it, and outputting a costing report with all marker data takes a few minutes. The Module Auto Nesting tools are designed to satisfy your marker-making demands from cost to productivity.
But, as mentioned before, Optitex software is not just limited to 2D. You can also create and share Photo Realistic 360° pictures of a realistic 3D virtual sample with customizable lighting and shadows. Using a tension map, you can see the exact tension, distance, and stretch between the fabric and the avatar.
Creative
The Creative module enables you to design directly in 3D to express your creative ideas. That is, you will be able to modify your style without ever touching the pattern.
For a quick onboarding process, Creative provides an essential user experience that fits designers’ skill sets.
With faster design and decision-making tools, you can free up time to be even more creative. Use the same 3D assets between the design and technical teams to communicate efficiently.
3D design for Illustrator
With the cutting-edge 3D plug-in developed by Optitex, you can see fabric and colors, change print patterns, and adjust graphic positioning in Adobe Illustrator.
Suppose you’re used to utilizing Illustrator as part of your design process. In that case, this plug-in will help you produce beautiful clothing with intricate prints by allowing you to leverage Illustrator’s fine-tuning capabilities.
Tuka3D
Platform: Windows
Tukatech provides an end-to-end solution for any clothing business. They offer several products ranging from 3D body scanning, laser cutting, and design tools. For this article, we will focus specifically on their 3D design solution, TUKA3D.
With TUKA3D, you can create spectacular presentations to show off 3D digital collections that replace physical samples.
You may also host fit sessions on customized virtual avatars that simulate real-time motion, guaranteeing perfect garment fit. Frame by frame, you can rotate the avatar to assess the garment’s tightness and looseness and evaluate its comfort in 5 visual ways: stretch, warp, weft, pressure, and x-ray.
TUKA3D has a constantly updated fabric and trim library as well as access to the Pantone color library. Users may also connect to graphic design tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to build design layouts for 3D virtual samples.
In short, TUKA3D has it all! Showcase your design in a presentation on TUKAcloud or your website.
