The Nike x Naomi Osaka project was a collaboration between material design and the 3D apparel team to utilize head-to-toe renders as methods to not only communicate design intent but also inform design decisions and rapidly prototype changes. This collaboration launched in December 2024 and is publicly available.
My primary focus on this project was the Jacquard Jacket. Alongside the 3D Apparel team the goal was to translate the 2D schematics above into the realistic full body render on the right.
At the time of creation this material was not yet manufactured, the only available data I had was a print schematic and some samples of past jacquards to use as inspiration.
The result is my interpretation of what weave patterns are best suited to represent each color of the schematic. A large focus for me was conveying a feeling of depth and texture change when viewed at a distance, while maintaining the details at a micro level that strongly influence how color changes affect the overall fabric.
Representing complex fabrics like this often comes with technical concerns, namely performance and resolution issues.
My primary tool for developing this fabric is Adobe Substance Designer, which has an 8K texture map limit. Within this, we run into other bottlenecks with certain nodes, such as the Tile Sampler. Given these restraints representing large engineered knits or jacquards can be come difficult, often coming down to relying on pixel-by-pixel changes to represent certain weave / knit structures.
Using 8K maps, while necessary to achieve the level of detail necessary, also comes with a large performance hit, particularly for designers who are not using the same level of computers as 3D artists. While the 3D apparel team is able to handle these files, separate, lower detail ones are often needed for designers to be able to use and iterate with.