Digital Fashion Design Ain't as Easy as It Looks

Digital Fashion Design Aint as Easy as It Looks
The computer-generated clothing in Pixar's "The Incredibles" required real tailors and years of programming.

Contrary to its Hollywood ending, the real hero of "The Incredibles" is Edna Mode, fashion designer to the superheroes.

Edna faces a daunting task: outfitting the bulgiest of the bulgy, the stretchiest of the stretchy and the fastest of the fast with premium-grade supersuits that must be able to accommodate things impossible for your average jeans and T-shirt.

Any reality-based fashion designer or tailor would run screaming and crying from such challenges.

But who would have guessed that Pixar's real-life computer animators face the same difficulties as Edna? In order to create costumes for computer-generated (CG) cartoons, you must tailor each garment and stitch every stitch to fit each actor.

And when dealing with an actor who's almost seven feet tall, with an 86-inch chest and 52-inch waist, who needs to be able to throw cars, a tailor has her work cut out. In "The Incredibles," animated life imitates animated art.

Mr. Incredible may be incredible, but he can't even begin to understand the geometric algorithms necessary to keep his little butt clothed. Welcome to the fabulous world of animated fashion.