life like animation

[GravidEngine]

I think it would most likely fall in the too time consuming category. There are like 206 bones, 640 muscles, and all sorts of veins, cartilage, etc. Then on top of that the skin is a big rubber glove over a machine with a crap-ton of moving parts.

I'm no rigging ace or anything and I've never worked with a big company so this is simply my educated guess from what I HAVE seen.

I think something that's lacking alot is making skin that is simply a cover. Most rigging seems to be done as joints are areas where skin is attatched... the shoulder blade is a perfect example. Most rigs I would say just glue the skin to the shoulder blade where the shoulder blade is more free-floating than that. Just by grabbing your forearm and twisting you can see how disconnected your skin is.

Another thing is muscle. You have basic rigs that are always flexed. Then you have more advanced rigs that flex when you bend your arm and what not. But the problem with that is that everytime you bend your arm you're not flexing, same with most muscles in your body. It may flex slightly. But to be done correctly you'd have to tripple an animators work by having to make them worry about when to flex what muscles which isn't traditionally a task a 3D animator would be used to.

It would be very tedious to say the least but definetly possible.

But if 96% of people believe the animation and it doesn't implement free-floating skin and muscles that flex by animation... why would they implement that when it would cost twice as much time which means twice as much money spent?

Don't get me wrong... I'm sure big companies do employ these concepts from time to time on close-up shots or the such and in major parts of the anatomy (like the shoulder blade)... but overall it seems fairly wasteful, again, if 96% of people believe it.

[alviniss]

I think something that's lacking alot is making skin that is simply a cover.
Another thing is muscle. But the problem with that is that everytime you bend your arm you're not flexing.


thanks

These are things i haven't thought of - they are definitely a part of it. I think the actual kinematics are what bother me most though. For instance in physics rarely does anything move at constant velocity. Human movements especially are not smooth (a result of feedback / adjustment loops?). Momentum affects directional changes / rest stops. Muscles have "springback"... movements aren't really constrained to only one or two axes, ect.

These are just some observations in addition to what you mentioned. Maybe there are programs to calculate model mass & weight and translate accordingly? It's not something the modeler should have to do. Could physics cards (AGEIA-PhysX ect) help.

[timothyc]

Another thing is muscle. You have basic rigs that are always flexed. Then you have more advanced rigs that flex when you bend your arm and what not. But the problem with that is that everytime you bend your arm you're not flexing, same with most muscles in your body. It may flex slightly. But to be done correctly you'd have to tripple an animators work by having to make them worry about when to flex what muscles which isn't traditionally a task a 3D animator would be used to.

I thought alot about this quite a few years ago and did this animation as a test for a soft body and muscular system in a CG character. Hopefully you can see what's going on in the rather low-res youTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gkLRhSdZJ0

Compare the upper body to the lower body and I think you can perceive the extra realism below the waist, since all the extra work is in the lower body.

Notably, see how wherever there's body contact with the floor there's some soft-body squash happening there. Also, you should be able to see the muscles tensing in the thighs according to the amount of effort they're undergoing. As you've rightly pointed out, muscle tension is a factor independant of joint angle because the muscle starts to strain even before the limb starts to move (the boffins call it isometric tension). Look at the part where she relaxes into the "laying-flat-on-floor" pose; hopefully you can see the thigh muscles working as she goes into, and out of, that position.

Overall, the thing I learned is that even though it's subtle and most people don't even notice it, it does add to the realism on a mostly subconscious level. See how the arms (biceps, triceps, forearms etc) seem kind of mechanical and dead in comparison?

TC

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