Overview
Soon after the pandemic started, physical events such as fashion shows and music concerts had to be cancelled, rescheduled, or moved completely online. At the same time, my workspace transitioned from a shared office environment to my home.
With this acrylic-to-pixel prototype, I wanted to paint a picture of a workspace where technology would seamlessly augment a traditional workflow so as to enhance the craft as opposed to disrupt it, all of this depicted in the form of a fashion show unfolding in a home setting instead of a large venue.
My recent involvement in The Fabric of Reality virtual fashion show has been a source of learning and motivation, and during the production, I had the opportunity to peek into the work of highly talented designers and understand some of the advantages and challenges that originate from a digital fashion workflow.
I expect a combination of edge computing, real-time rendering, augmented reality, and 5G to enable a workspace for craftspersons, artists, and designers, that allow them to focus on their creations and existing workflows while benefiting from the advantages of the digital.
Imagine a creative space where technology’s visual footprint is non-existent, with remote computing resources dynamically arranging themselves according to one’s needs during a particular task, not a radical change, rather a seamless and almost natural augmentation of the working environment.
Interview by AnimationXpress about the video demo: link to page
Article by Joachim Hensch, former managing director at Hugo Boss Textile Industries: link to pageScope of Work and Skills
Garment design in Marvelous Designer, automated character rigging and animation (Mixamo), mesh optimisation in Blender, setup of a mixed reality experience in Unreal for pixel streaming to a HoloLens device, speech recognition (this allowed me to use voice commands to "direct" the model), ideation and integration of the acrylic-to-pixel pipeline, video recording, editing and music creation in GarageBand (basic skills, mostly samples to be fair).
Equipment
I used an HP Z1 equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super graphics, an HD webcam, and a HoloLens device with a mobile phone mounted inside it to record the experience.
HoloLens 2
HP Z1
GeForce RTX 2070 Super
Logitech C920 HD Pro Webcam
Painting
Printed UV Layout of Garment
Webcam, Light, and Canvas Setup
