Proximal shader for muscle deformation?

[danb]

25 views no replies. Bummer.

[cookepuss]

It's not that nobody cares. It's more likely that people might want to try it out first.

There are some examples of proximal over here...

http://www.jeremyw.com/C4D_Stuff/C4D_Links.html

[danb]

Sorry just a little anxious. Patience is a virtue, right?

[cookepuss]

Don't know. I'm pretty short on it myself. :applause:

[danb]

ok i came across DPack tools in a search on proximal displacement in this forum. i wonder if someone who has DPack tools if they could try the idea out. here are a couple of examples of the deformation i was hoping to achieve.

http://www.the3ddesigner.de/download/plugin/dpack/facedppp.avi

http://www.the3ddesigner.de/download/plugin/dpack/mousedp2.mov

[Neoklassik]

I'm sure the left brainers are laughing at me right now ;p
Here's an idea anyway.
Maybe use a spline for the muscle to travel on? Then use expressions to tie the bone movement to the muscle movement on the path.
I know that can be done.. I've seen a couple plugs and expressions for it on different sites.

Here's a couple tests of proximal as displacement with DiTools I did yesterday while trying to get a rain effect. QT files.

Example 1 .mov (http://www.3dfightclub.com/~neoklassik/uploads/distort4.mov)

Example2 (http://www.3dfightclub.com/~neoklassik/uploads/distort.mov)

[flingster]

whats all the talk of muscle bones..can't it be done that way?
maybe this is just a totally noob way of thinking..but as i never do any animation only stills..maybe not.:shrug:

also really what you want is some of the people who are clever at riggin to comment eg sanciok, adam, kai to name a few and there are many more whos names i forget...please forgive me..no offence to those i forgot but you know what i mean.:shrug:

[LucentDreams]

HEHE I feel stupid jumping right after flingsters post :)

Anyways, I"m sure if you tried it, that probably could work, but thats a lot of work for a mediocre result, a muscle bone is much easier and effective, and even beter then that is actual bone driven morphs, but one issue with that is it also takes time to setup and you have to model the morphs, and morphs of a whole character take up memory like crazy. Muscle bones are the easiest way and can be effective.

[danb]

sorry to say but i don't follow what you mean Kaiskai by muscle bones. Still fairly new at character animation, sorry. Can you eloborate more on your techniques. I.E. muscle bones and/or muscle driven morphs. thanks for the patience.:blush:

[LucentDreams]

muscle bones work in two ways

A bone that holds its position but scales as anothe rjoint moves, for example the bicep would have an additional bone that would scale on Y when ever the arm forearm bends thus causing the mesh to bulge in that area.

A bone that moves and extends on Z attach a bone to the shoulder point slightly up, as the arm bens it roatates up a bit more and scales on Z this cause the bicep to bluge and slide al ittle, this creates a more convinsing muscle.

Bone driven morphs basically make a morph pose, select the rotation of the fore arm, rightclick and go to set driver, then go to the morphs slider, and right click set driven. You could use clamping and uch to make it looke better but thats it in a nutshell.

[flingster]

is that on your CD?

[danb]

Thanks so much Kaiskai for that quick tut. i will look into it. that is definately what i was hoping to acheive. You are making a cd for animation, awesome. i will definately buy it. any news as to when it will be out. sorry to bug you and can understand confidentiality. thanks again.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by flingster
is that on your CD?

good question, unfortunately no I am not covering muscle bones on this CD.

[danb]

Yeah doggy...Kaiskai i just did a muscle deformation like you suggested and it worked awesome. i had one more question though; How do i set the motion of the muscle bone to be driven by the movement or rotation of the other bones. for example i did a quick animation of an arm. i used the bicep bone. the forearm bone and the muscle bone. i rotated the forearm to flex like an arm. i then scaled, rotated, and moved the muscle bone along the z axis to get a nice muscle bulge. this all worked awesome, but it would seem a bit time confusing to set at every keyframe. i would like to set it to be driven by the rotation of the forearm. can you offer any help. thanks again.

[AdamT]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
and morphs of a whole character take up memory like crazy. Muscle bones are the easiest way and can be effective.
It's too bad Posemixer doesn't employ a more intelligent morphing scheme, like Arndt's Vreel Morph which only stores information for points that have moved and doesn't require morph targets to be stored as separate objects. I think Fabian also has a morphing plugin that only stores changed-point data. Maybe in Mocca 2. :)

[LucentDreams]

right click on whatever you want to set as driver e.g. the roation of the forearm, and then under animation you'll see set driver.

then once you've set a driver you can right click on whatever you want to drive, go to animation and then set driven.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by AdamT
It's too bad Posemixer doesn't employ a more intelligent morphing scheme, like Arndt's Vreel Morph which only stores information for points that have moved and doesn't require morph targets to be stored as separate objects. I think Fabian also has a morphing plugin that only stores changed-point data. Maybe in Mocca 2. :)

Yes both are pretty nice, shame Doppleganger never finished either. But all three are still more complex then it needs to be, I think mirai's system is still the best and easiest to set up.

[danb]

WOW that was easy. Thanks again Kaiskai. here is a sample frame from the short animation i did. does everything look ok?

[bobzilla]

I've never gotten the whole muscle bone thing to work right. After the deformation, the bones seem to jiggle around and not go quite back into place.

I wrote out a very long "suggestion" to Maxon on a muscle system. But since I know NOTHING about programming, they're probably all having a good laugh about it.

If anyone's interested in it, or at least tell me if it's possible, I'd be glad to email it to you.

Again, it could just be the ramblings of a mental patient....

[danb]

bobzilla. i am interested in your explanation. although i have no experience in programming either. i just was hoping to here your idea anyways. my email is dbacs2194@msn.com

[JIII]

what the heck bobaloo why not just post it on the forum for us all to see.

Some people do have programing exp here. not me of course but ya know those others.

I like the look o that deformer.

[bobzilla]

JII: Not for any particular reason. It's pretty long and quite rambling. If you guys want it, I'll post it when I get home.

Kai and Srek...DON"T LAUGH AT IT!!... ;-)

[danb]

Yeah please post. It might be inspirational.:shrug:

[bobzilla]

First, I know NOTHING about programming or the difficulty of doing ths. But...

How difficult would it be to come up with a Muscle deformer. Similar to a bone deformer. I've seen ACT and the way other apps handle muscles and it always seems overcomplicated. Especially for us shlubs who don't work for Pixar or ILM.

Heres what I was thinking. The Muscle deformer would be a basic shape, maybe a "jellybean" or Metaball-type shape. You would drop it into your mesh just like a bone. Lets use a leg, for example. You want to make a calf muscle. Drop the Muscle into the mesh. Then you would have the option to parent to bone (in this case the shin bone). Then you would use something similar to ClsudeBonet to "attach" it to the mesh. You would paint the corresponding point around the calf area that you want it to affect. But as you paint the points, the muscle attaches itself to the INSIDE of the mesh so it conforms exactly the the shape of the calf only on the INSIDE. Now, if you moved the bone it would move exactly with the leg. BUT, if you WEIGHT the ClaudeBonet-type map, it would react accordingly. For instance, you would want a more "exact fit" around the front of the shin bone, as in real life, but a more natural, looser movement in the actual calf muscle. At this point, once the map is weighted, you would go to the Atribute Manager for that muscle and set Soft IK-type options. Gravity, flexing, expanding, AND JIGGLE, which would go up and down AND around the bone it was parented to (for a reference). Like when you stomp your foot down and the quadrucep moves AROUND the thigh and you would set how long it would take to settle.

Well, that's my idea. Again...a suggestion. I'm SURE I've oversimplified a very complex problem!

[JIII]

hmm doesn't sound that bad but yea I also know nothing about programming.

the real problem with it is that it would take many expensive of hours of programming so unless there is a real need for it commercaily no one would do it.

thats just my opinion.

[bobzilla]

Well, I thought it at least sounded a lot less complicated than Absolute Character Tools, looks really cool, but seems overly complicated.

I don't expect ILM to use it, but Maxon has had a way to make complicated concepts pretty easy to use for us "average Joes" and I thought they might be able to come up with something.

It at least gives an IDEA of what I was thinking of.

I'm all for using muscle bones if someone would do a simple rig showing them in use. I have yet to see that for Cinema.

[danb]

I think that is a lot like the ACT in 3dmax. i think this could be accomplished if DPack tools had dynamics or squash and stretch properties like in max. i am working on a keyframed animation to show what i mean and will post pics and explainations soon. I don't have DPack so everything is going to keyframed and animated with no modifiers or such.

[danb]

here is a quick muscle bones animation that i made with the help from Kaiskai. Thanks again Kaiskai.

[bobzilla]

danb: when I open your ZIP it says it's corrupted.

I'm in Mac OS 10.2.6, if that makes a difference.

[danb]

yeah that makes a difference. i compressed it under pc format. i'll try to get it into mac format and then repost. be back in a few.

[danb]

sorry for posting so much needlessly. i should've just posted this file in the last thread. here it is in the zip it is an .sitx file.
Remember to add Hypernurbs to the object to get the full effect. good luck

[bobzilla]

Well, I can't open that one either. I need to update to StuffIt 7 to open it, I only have 6.5.

Don't knock yourself for me. I'll figure something out.

Sorry to be a pain...

[flingster]

wierd i use a pc...the first file is compressed zip file format and then a rar file holding the c4d file...if i try opening the c4d file i get a crc error...
i can open the second mac zip whic contains a sitx file but i don't have stuff it.:rolleyes:

are well...how about just the c4d file?
sorry to mess ya about dan thanks:shrug:

[flingster]

oooh yeah...i like the jelly bone idea..funky:thumbsup:

[danb]

All right everyone, i have been trying to attatch the C4d file but it totals 119kb. this is to big. even after i zip it up the file is still too big. So if anyone still wants this file and an explaination of how to achieve the muscle bone deformations, please send me a private message with an email address so i can email the file to you. I would really like to help anyone interested but i think posting all of these replies is unneccesary. So please PM me. The file is really nice.

Oh yeah...Thanks again Kaiskai for the teachings.

[bobzilla]

danb: You could send whatever you have to me! I would really appreciate it.

bob@theiguanaden.com

[flingster]

danb...we are not trying to bust your balls bud...heh heh

any chance you can email me to my sig below.
cheers bud...appreciated.
:beer: :beer:

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