3D Virtual Fashion with Character Creator Digital Humans

3D Scan Blender Character Creator Commercial Ads Digital Human Virtual Production ZBrush

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Creating Ultra Realistic Digital Humans for the 3D Fashion Industry

At its core, Unexplored Fields is a collective of 3D artists who intricately blend art, fashion, and CGI. Specializing in art direction and the production of digital campaigns for the fashion industry, the studio boasts a diverse team skilled in various areas such as art direction, 3D modeling, avatar and environment creation, cloth simulations, material generation, realistic renderings, and sound design.

Through collaborative efforts, they infuse the essence of partnered brands into their visuals like Calvin Klein, Lacoste, Dr. Martens, ADOBE, Golgotha, and more. Their approach involves deliberately blurring the lines between reality and the virtual realm, playing with perception. Ultimately, Unexplored Fields aims to imbue the world of computer graphics with an organic touch, crafting visuals that authentically resonate with their audience.

For this Pitch & Produce session, three designers from Unexplored Fields collaborated together to leverage Character Creator digital human technology with Blender, Clo 3D and Houdini: Virgile Biosa, Etienne Kawczak-Wirz and Ilyès Taïebi

“We found out that Character Creator (CC) offers the smoothest pipeline integration with Blender, but it’s also really easy to combine it with ZBrush and Substance Painter. While solutions like Unreal’s MetaHuman Creator are impressive, Character Creator’s compatibility and efficiency with our existing toolkit made it the optimal choice for our digital fashion creations.”
Virgile Biosa – Art Director / 3D Apparel Designer

Étienne Kawczak-Wirz – Art Director / 3D Generalist / Music Composer

Etienne Kawczak-Wirz introduction : “Étienne Kawczak-Wirz is a French artist who graduated from the Fine Arts in 2016. He juggles multiple activities, each feeding into the other: a personal artistic practice, collective work within Unexplored Fields, and a musical project under the name Zone Minor Modification.

The medium of 3D gradually asserted itself as his principal tool of expression. His influences primarily draw from art history and cinema. The notion of refuge has been irrigating his work for many years, and his ongoing project “Vercors Refuge” is an opportunity for him to address this theme in a more direct manner. Within Unexplored Fields, one of his roles involves leveraging his expertise in artistic direction and technical abilities to serve the major brands collaborating with the studio.

Virgile Biosa – Art Director / 3D Apparel Designer

Virgile Biosa introduction : Virgile Biosa is an Art Director and 3D artist based in Lyon, France. With a background in Fashion Design (Saint-Luc Tournai, Be) and Fine Arts (Ecole Duperré, Paris, Fr), he continues to explore fashion design through digital tools, all the while maintaining a keen eye for artisanal aesthetic.

Inspired by his promenades through natural and urban landscapes, as well as a wide range of art forms, his projects frequently focus on the natural world and the intersection between nature and technology. Virgile Biosa has collaborated with a range of clients, including brands such as Suicoke, Hagel, PAG Neckwear and more… Co-founder of Unexplored Fields, Virgile plays the role of art director and 3d specialist with a focus on fashion. He is also involved in the digital archiving company d_archive.

Ilyès Taïebi introduction : Ilyès Taïebi is an image creator and 3D designer based in Biarritz, France. With a background in styling (Saint-Luc Tournai, Be) and fashion design (Atelier Chardon Savard, Fr) he now combines his skills in 3D modeling and his passion for design in the search for new ways of creating, designing and communicating through images. Today he creates authentic, narrative digital campaigns, giving free rein to his imagination and exploring the different horizons of his ideas in order to sublimate the appearance of a product, in the environment he chooses according to the story he wants to tell.

Ilyès Taïebi works for brands ranging from ready-to-wear, to sportswear, to luxury, collaborating with the likes of Décathlon, 686, Off-white, Heron Preston, Chloé and more… Also co-founder of Unexplored Fields, Ilyès plays the role of 3D Designer and 3D fashion specialist, creating original and aesthetic designs, while getting involved in the narrative world of the campaigns he creates.

Q: Congratulations on being part of the Reallusion Pitch & Produce program. Please share with us the many disciplines that the field of 3D fashion requires. What does a digital fashion campaign typically contain?

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the Reallusion Pitch & Produce program!

I think that a digital fashion campaign requires to combine all the disciplines from CGI with the fashion design fundamentals such as; patternmaking, garment construction, textile design. My background in fashion design helps me a lot, not just in shaping silhouettes but also in understanding various finishes, and predicting how they’ll drape and respond to simulated forces, crucial for achieving realistic renders. On top of those technical skills, I believe that having a trained eye for fashion visuals and an understanding of fashion’s codes is important.

I am not sure if there is one typical digital fashion campaign. In my experience it goes from 3D packshot renders to narrative-driven visuals with a strong art direction. Personally, I find it interesting to produce fashion campaigns that immerse the viewers in singular worlds where the ambiance, the visuals and the sounds create an immersive experience, deriving from the product to also to feel the essence and ethos of the brand.

Here’s an internal production that we find to be a great example of what I’m talking about :

Unexplored Fields

Q: Your digital fashions require the use of high quality digital humans where you used Character Creator (CC) for your avatar creations. Why did you choose to use CC versus other tools like Unreal’s MetaHuman Creator?

Most of our renders are done with Blender Cycles. After trying different solutions, we found out that Character Creator (CC) offers the smoothest pipeline integration with Blender, but it’s also really easy to combine it with ZBrush and Substance Painter. While solutions like Unreal’s MetaHuman Creator are impressive, Character Creator’s compatibility and efficiency with our existing toolkit made it the optimal choice for our digital fashion creations.

Ultra realistic Digital Human in Character Creator

Q: Kindly share with us the process of creating your digital humans, the many tools you use, and the average time it takes you to create an avatar.

The process of creating our digital humans can take from 4 to 8 days, depending on the project’s complexity and requirements. While our journey into digital human creation is relatively recent, we’ve used this Pitch & Project experience to try a new pipeline (that probably still has room for improvements !).

Our workflow begins with a high-resolution scan as our base. It can be custom made or from one of the various online libraries like Texturing XYZ or 3D Scan Store.

From there, we use Character Creator 4’s artificial intelligence enhanced Headshot 2.0 plugin to generate the initial human model, which serves as our foundation.

3D Human scan inside Character Creator Headshot plugin

Next, we leverage Character Creator‘s suite of tools to customize the avatar, adjusting proportions and textures as needed to achieve the desired look.

Adjusting Digital Human facial morphs with Character Creator

For a very detailed and custom avatar, we like to use the GoZ button to sculpt intricate skin’s details, and refine the face and body shapes with more precision. Once satisfied, we import the model into Blender using the free Character Creator’s Auto Setup tool, where we fine-tune skin shaders to match our project’s specifications. The hair is usually achieved with Blender’s native grooming tools. However, this wasn’t necessary for the specific requirements of this film.

Digital human texture adjustments in Blender

Q: Once your digital humans are created, you leverage iClone’s character animation features including its iPhone LIVE FACE for facial animation. What are the advantages of using iClone and its dynamic wrinkles in your pipeline?

It was our first time using the iClone LIVE FACE profile for iPhone, and it was really incredible to see our avatar come to life in real time, without the need for complex setups.

Animating 3D virtual fashion avatars with iClone mocap

Also, I appreciated how easy it was to fine tune the expressions using masking options and adjust parameters such as strength and smoothness. iClone’s dynamic wrinkles feature added another layer of details to our character, bringing him to life with subtle yet realistic details.

Character Creator and iClone Dynamic Wrinkles

Q: When your avatars are ready, how do you start modeling and simulating your cloth and accessories?

My approach typically involves drafting the silhouette as soon as the proportions are finalized. I prefer to work with a natural pose rather than a stretched T-pose, opting instead for a relaxed A-pose with minimal distortions. This initial pose serves as the basis for all subsequent animations, eliminating the need for constant readjustments during simulations. Transition preparation in iClone facilitates this process, requiring just a few clicks to ensure seamless animation.

Digital Human A-Pose in Character Creator

After the avatar animation is validated, I export it to Blender as an .FBX file. Occasionally, I create additional blend shapes to address potential collision issues during cloth simulation, typically focusing on providing ample room in the armpits. When it’s not done in Character Creator, I parent shoes and accessories to the avatar’s rig in Blender. Then, I prepare a low-poly version for each item for collision detection.

With the animation ready, I export an Alembic file (.abc) to Clo3D, where all the cloth simulation takes place. Clo3D allows for detailed simulation adjustments, ensuring realistic cloth behavior. Once satisfied, I export the simulated cloth as an Alembic file back to Blender. In some cases, I incorporate a Houdini step to refine simulations or simulate specific details like hanging cords or earrings, as seen in our Pitch & Project film.

Clo 3D clothing adjustments with CC avatar

Q: Can you talk about the advantages of using the Character Creator Auto Setup tool for Blender? What tools did you use for your final render?

It’s one of the reasons I like to use Character Creator : the Auto Setup tool for Blender works very smoothly, automatically importing textures, including the wrinkles deformation, rig controllers (utilizing Rigify), and blendshapes.

Advanced Character Creator pipeline to Blender

It’s very comfortable as it affords in making adjustments to animations or facial expressions directly within Blender, which we use for building and rendering the scene.