Monster : muscular system

#81

Verry nice model and muscle simulation. But i have a few suggestions for you: MPEG-4, Divx, Windows Media 9…
I guess you are a 3D-artist and not a video editor but cinepak must be the most outdated codec in the world…

#82

loked,

can soft bodies simulate areas such as creases?, certainly with max flex and reactor cant do this. This the only reason i see to using cloth.Also i would imagine it must be implicit surface calculation rather than explicit. Maya uses a very robust (non artifact) implicit cloth system, and for things like this, does very well.

eek

#83

Originally posted by Graf Orlok
[B]
I see that in a few instances your solver acts the same way especially under the “love handles” and at the middle of the chest when he rises his arms. And this seems to be a Maya-cloth problem. A dream would be if someone came up with a way to damp certain vertices movement or some average surface dampening. I’ve been through all of the dampenings and cutoffs in the properties but never got rid of them…

/Staffan
Fido film [/B]

Syflex does this, and relatively quickly. It is a $3000 plugin. But in a couple weeks (when xsi 4 is released–if it’s ever released), you get it as a part of XSI Advanced. Suprised you haven’t heard of it. I know all about this noise and popping you refer to–a heartbreaker. XSI cloth has teh same issues.

#84

AMAZING !! =) never seen something like this =)

#85

Very impressive work so far! :thumbsup: Could you explain how you manage to transfer the movement / deformation of the muscles to the skin when not using the cloth-simulation? Do you still achieve skin sliding?

Cheers,
Mojo

#86

If working with softbodies, you would be able te decide wich part of the skin is more flexible then other parts.
Some guys where refering to this when they said that Maya Cloth is not able to apply local skin proporties.
Maybe there is a way to combine these two methods to get the ultimate skin setup ?

He hallo Corny, ik ben 't: Pepijn. Alles goed?

:: Galactor ::

#87

First of all, great job. It still lacks some of the effects of real skin and many have already commented on the issue but shows great potential and overall looks very good.

I am working on something similar actually but with the idea that everything is near real time. So maya cloth is basically out of the picture. I am using a few other tricks to achieve this, but I have been considering using syflex cause of its speed. Having the skin slide properly and having to fake that fat tissue layer is still a big issue for me. But all the muscles works quite well and fast right now. One thing that is definitely great about a muscle setup is it does a great job of preserving volumes when deforming.

With regards to cloth vs soft body. Well, it takes A Lot of work to get softbody to behave properly like cloth so not to mention skin. A muscle system requires a lot of work underneeve to setup already and using a softbody skin will just increase the setup time that much more, not to mention that ultimately, your results will not be that nice. Its a fine line between looking good and looking real.

Btw, I do think you can set local properties with maya cloth. At least on some attributes, thats what the cloth paint tools are for. But even with that, in my experience with maya cloth, I would not use it to try to emulate skin. It will just have too much problem, not to mention its slow.

#88

Just a question of logistics…

Is the simulated cloth then used as a wrap deformer to influence the underlying nurbs patches?

#89

Nice work. :thumbsup: I would not use cloth for muscle deformations, thats just my opinion. In order for geometry to act like skin the geometry has to be turned into, or be made a elastic node that can take shape of objects under neath it. And be able to skin that to joints. Unfortunatly maya does not suport anything like that. We are working on something like that here but I can’t disclose anything more than that at the moment… I have tried soft body’s, cloth, and deformers. The best I have found, was a mixture of softbodys and deformer. Thats what I used here Demon

Nice work :thumbsup:

#90

Wow RIC that looked very cool. I only have 1 question, how did u make the ‘crusts’ on the monsters shouders/head/chest? I’m making a Cave troll and was wondering if its better to model it or bump map it but your crusts look mega cool.

#91

Digital Domain used Syflex to do the skin on the Crocodile in the recent Peter Pan movie that came out around Christmas.

So methods like this are definatly being used in production. Syflex is just alot faster at solves then maya cloth because it takes alot or shortcuts that still look very close to what maya cloth produces but not quite as accuract. Since this is for entertainment and does not have to be scientificly correct, it works just fine.

#92

Digital Domain used Syflex to do the skin on the Crocodile in the recent Peter Pan movie

I think this is a good indication of the need for Maya to have some sort of skin/muscle functionality in it’s next version. I was really hoping for it in Maya 6, but no luck thus far :cry:

Using Syflex and Cloth seems like a sort of hack workaround.

#93

In my experience everything in film and tv is a hack workaround no matter what software you use whether it is 2d or 3d. So even if maya does get a muscle system your still going to make more hack work arounds to get it to work the way you want because they no one can make something that fits into every situation for every person. It makes no difference if its maya or xsi or houdini.

#94

I am working on something similar actually but with the idea that everything is near real time. So maya cloth is basically out of the picture.

As will be any other known method I assume.
You must either have a monster of a machine or the brain the size of the Hindenburg to come up with something that could achieve that real time. But I’m all ears of course.

Hé Pepijn alles kits, we dachten aan een kopenhagen borrel binnenkort ergens in Utrecht ofzo, geinteresseerd?

#95

A lot of companies have worked out their own skin deformation systems (Weta for example). The only downpoint is that they are not willing to shear it. Sound reasonable because a lot of research is done to get their skin systems working.

If i’m right they also worked together with ILM to create fluids for “The Perfect Storm”. Well maybe they can work out a skin deformation system with them as well :slight_smile:

I guess the first time i saw it was on “The Mummy” (or maybe even earlier). So it has been around for a long while.
Strange that none of the mayor 3d packages do not have a skin deformation system, since it is not a new technologie.
Maybe messiah has some nice features since it realy is a cool and renewing animation package.

Prima idee Corny, lijkt me wel wat !

:: Galactor ::

#96

i’ve tried forever to see this movie but it doesnt work… even when i download the codec…

is it so hard to just use a normal mpeg codec?

nice pictures :shrug:

#97

On the topic of ‘Syflex’, the new v. for Maya 6 has some very interesting new features, including a feature called ‘mimics’:

lovely to play with, and v. fast too :slight_smile:

edit: sorry, a bit ahead of time:blush:

Atwooki

#98

Thx all for your comments ! they are very interesting !!!
MoD_Legion : i made the ‘crusts’ in paraform but you can do it more quicky with zbrush.
kiaran : yes :slight_smile:
Nzo: Thanks my friend ! Adtaleur :beer:

See you !

#99

Originally posted by kiaran
[B]I think this is a good indication of the need for Maya to have some sort of skin/muscle functionality in it’s next version. I was really hoping for it in Maya 6, but no luck thus far :cry:

Using Syflex and Cloth seems like a sort of hack workaround. [/B]

Well, if you think about the behavior of real skin, cloth does have a lot of similarities. The only thing is it can be tough to have control needed to do skin with a cloth solver. I think tippett’s skin solver used in hellboy was based on cloth sim. Of course I do agree that a custom skin deformer / solver would be much better than doing it with a cloth sim, but its one of the closest thing we have commercially. I would be happy if maya had something like XSI/ soft’s shrink wrap with a few extra controls.

I do agree that character skinning technology have not moved forward at all for the past few years. New tools have been created to enhance the workflow, but it has not changed at all for many years. The worst of all is the skinning plugin Bones Pro for Max, which I used 6 years ago allows for better workflow, quality and performance than Maya’s current smooth bind (minus the influence objects though). I have already made a wishlist for a new skinning paradigm for maya at the maya feature list website

http://www.maya.digication.com/

If we all vote for it, there will be a higher chance for alias to implement it in the future. So if you guys want this to improve, please vote for it or add in other features you would like to see in the future.

#100

One way i would do it, would to only use localized skin simulation, i.e around joints, belly, neck, face. Everything else could be basic skinning and deformation.

~edit
might stick this idea into my facial rig.

eek