Monster : muscular system

#121

yep, exaclty. The ability to tweak the muscles to fix problems i.e intersection, tearing etc etc via blendshapes is crucial. Also it means you can take artistic licence, so stuff looks realistic, but may not be anatomically correct. Im using max atm, but if i get time ill look into this with maya also.

Things like fat is an interesting issue. The difference between the top skin layer and the bone. Hellboy used an offset for this so there was a delay, between the muscle and the skin reaction to it. Also they used a clever technique of firing of the muscle/skin simulation a few frames before joint rotation. As in reality muscles pull/push joints.

Also, key defineable areas are perfect for blendshapes as they either pull or push e.g bicep(the skin doesnt need to wrinkle) Where as other areas between muscle/bone can use just standard skin sim e.g area between thumb and index finger.

eek

#122

Does skin sim work well for the flap between thumb and forefinger?

I imagined I would just have create some blends for those because of the peculiarities of the folding skin when the thumb is lifted and dropped and the stretching of the skin as it is rotated outward.

#123

Sorry for the dead link, I have some trouble with my provider …
:rolleyes:

See You :wavey:

#124

Does skin sim work well for the flap between thumb and forefinger? I imagined I would just have create some blends for those because of the peculiarities of the folding skin when the thumb is lifted and dropped and the stretching of the skin as it is rotated outward.

True, But i thought you would use the blend shape muscles for just key parts, i mean actual muscles. But actually your right, for key areas of creasing such as thumb/index finger you could have a set called e.g crease shapes. The skin layer over the top could only need to hand minor creases and wrinkles.

What would be really cool would be some clever link between the muscle shapes and the crease shape. So .eg the crease shape would squish between the muscle shapes, and then the skin on top.

eek

#125

Originally posted by eek
[B]True, But i thought you would use the blend shape muscles for just key parts, i mean actual muscles. But actually your right, for key areas of creasing such as thumb/index finger you could have a set called e.g crease shapes. The skin layer over the top could only need to hand minor creases and wrinkles.

What would be really cool would be some clever link between the muscle shapes and the crease shape. So .eg the crease shape would squish between the muscle shapes, and then the skin on top.

eek [/B]

I figure the hand is kind of like the face… You want to be more specific with it. You need more direct control of the final outcome of the shape (and can always make intermediate shapes on a needs only basis)

I’ve been doing alot of drawing from nude models lately and there are just so many fleshy creases that form on a body in motion (well toned or not) That “muscle only” solutions wont properly address. Like when a midsection bends and twists. Each direction of twist gets a diferent s-curve line of fold…

Maybe this is better for another area of discussion? :slight_smile:

I dont want to abscond with this thread.

Rich

#126

Super Mortel Ric ! Bravo :thumbsup:

#127

great!and i wanna know how u create the texture?

#128

Tomaya : Merci Thomas !! :beer:
chinamaxer : thx ! The displace map was extract from a very high def model ( 6 millions faces for the half of the monster ) made in paraform, there is no paint map on this creature.

Sorry for my bad english … :blush:

Take care ! :wavey:

#129

You guys are going to have to pardon my ignorance but I absolutley HAVE to get in on this. First off, RIC, great job. Those render times dont seem that bad for use in an animated SHORT short like the ones I plan to crank out here at the Academy…other than that a commercial or full scene production shot would probably be unacceptable I guess but who knows…however, 5 minutes a frame aint too bad in my oppinion. I am coming from the Blender community and if I ever wanted to generate some nice radioisity renders or GI shots than I was going to have to wait. MAYA has a bit of a strong hold here in my oppinion (MentalRay’s speed /quality ratio).

Ok, anyways, enough tangents, back on track…on with the questions!!

  1. I was doing a little research and was wondering what the flaws would be of using, ofcourse, a Soft Bind in conjunction with:

a) Sculpt deformers applied with the “Stretch” option

…as opposed to using…

b) an underlying “muscle” mesh with a surface influence applied?

  1. Can a sculpt deformer be shaped into something other than a sphere or is the user expected to place these tiny spheres accordingly to achieve the look of the applicable muscle mass?

  2. I start this question out with a quote…

Originally posted by Rich Suchy
I’ve been doing alot of drawing from nude models lately and there are just so many fleshy creases that form on a body in motion (well toned or not) That “muscle only” solutions wont properly address. Like when a midsection bends and twists. Each direction of twist gets a diferent s-curve line of fold…

Couldnt you just use influnce curves (more control) or even wire/wrinkle deformers (less control) here? Again I am new to MAYA and am not aware of the various limitations brought about from the many features so please, by all means…enlighten me!! LOL!!

In case you havent noticed I plan to use a setup like this for atleast one of my assignments and cannot afford SYFLEX (even at the student costs) so I am covering my bases of what MAYA has to offer. Also, I will be posting ALL of my steps upon completeion of the project regarding whatever decision I decide to make and how it was all achieved. If you know me from other posts such as the AIRMAN project then you will know that I am not kidding…LOL! Its crazy…there really isnt that much information available on this subject…I only found it in ONE of the MANY Maya books on the bookshelves…but then again this is a bit of an advanced subject and could easily be sold for big bucks on a training DVD…I am sure that this is the case.

Anyways, thanks ahead of time guys. Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Landis

#130

Landis Wrote…

Couldnt you just use influnce curves (more control) or even wire/wrinkle deformers (less control) here? Again I am new to MAYA and am not aware of the various limitations brought about from the many features so please, by all means…enlighten me!! LOL!!

its a matter of taste. I prefer exacting control. I want to automate changes and know what my results will be absolutely.

Rich

#131

Landis Wrote…
Couldnt you just use influnce curves (more control) or even wire/wrinkle deformers (less control) here? Again I am new to MAYA and am not aware of the various limitations brought about from the many features so please, by all means…enlighten me!! LOL!!

I use this approach in my facial setup. But as Rich say you need the ability to tweak, on the fly. The main key problems to solve are not muscles, but are the sliding properties and wrinkles/creases.

Sliding first off could be simulated, either procedurally, cloth sim, deformers, vertex movement even bones. Keys areas of sliding is how much it slides. How the fat is controlled and how it controls the skin.

Wrinkling/creasing is difficult. Tweakablilty is key as your gunna get problems. If your gunna use creases like blendshapes your gunna have to be very careful as you dont want them all looking the same, so Rich’s got a good idea using them in conjuntion with softbodies. Also your can only use so many of these crease shapes, as if you gunna simulate all the creases of the body your gunna have to make hundreds!.

Simulation of creases is difficult to as you get numerous artifacts, so you have to be sparing on these, also to simulate and entire skin will use massive computing power!.

IMO, you want a setup like this: build the skeleton-add muscle blendshapes(ldriven by bones)-dynamically link the softbody blendshape creases/wrinkles in key areas ie, joints(driven by both bones and muscle blends)-add skin on top, with sliding properties and little creaseability.

Then add a script that drives the muscle/creases about 2-5 frames before the joints move i.e real world.(hell boy setup)
–>muscles drive joints.

Skin over the top needs some clever properties, slidability, stifness, bone to fat and vise versa.

eek

#132

eek,

Excellent explanation. Thank you very much for the info. I assure you your post will not go to waste.

Rich,

Thanks and good luck with your project.

Cheers,
Landis

#133

Originally posted by eek [B]…add muscle blendshapes(ldriven by bones)-dynamically link the softbody blendshape creases/wrinkles in key areas ie, joints(driven by both bones and muscle blends)

Sorry I’m a bit lost here, muscleblendshapes driven by bones - I assume you mean that the angle of a bone determines the value of the blendshape?

joints(driven by both bones and muscle blends) - sorry stared at it for a while and tried to compriand, but I’m sorry to say, can’t figure it out. Not your fault, my brain is only small, but please explain a bit more?

#134

i like the idea of using the cloth as skin
wonderfull

#135

bon, moi RIC j’suis chaud pour l’Angleterre bordel de merde hihi
A plus tard mec!

#136

rem07 : Hahahaha , ouais va falloir qu on aille faire un pitit tour a Londres pour voire :slight_smile: Bon et vous passez quand vous voulez … enfin comme d hab quoi :slight_smile:
Moonwalker : thanks man !
Take care !

#137

Sorry I’m a bit lost here, muscleblendshapes driven by bones - I assume you mean that the angle of a bone determines the value of the blendshape?

yes, drive the muscles via joint rotation. Then drive the crease shapes via the muscles shapes and a bit of the joint. So eg:

at 45 degree of joint A muscle 1 goes to 50%, then at 75% of muscle 1,crease shape goes to 50%.

then make it start 5 frames before the joint.

So eg:
the muscle bulges slighty before the joint, then the joint rotates, the muscles bulges, which at 50% trigger the crease shape to start.

(muscle-joint rotation-muscle-crease)over skin

The joint isnt driven, the animator still rotates it. But the blendshape when say played back starts slightly before like in real life. You have to do some clever mel script or something. Ill have a go at this in max.

Reading more on the hulk. I relised they mad hundreds of different hulk poses which blended together!. All the major joints!. They had to model 42 different models just for his shoulders! eek!

They drove the pose via joint, but used the hieght and spin of a joint. I suppose like an offset, and not a rotation?

eek

#138

If you automate muscle bulges, be sure to add states, such as whether the joint is pulling or pushing. You can then animate one curve for each joint. You could just leave the animation of the muscles up to the animator, for complete control. Sometimes an animator might want it to shiver, or not always exert the same force… Muscles dont flex the same to lift a bolling ball as they do for a feather. I would leave the flex animation less automatic, but attach corrective joint deformation blendshapes to the bone angles.

Originally posted by eek
[B]yes, drive the muscles via joint rotation. Then drive the crease shapes via the muscles shapes and a bit of the joint. So eg:

at 45 degree of joint A muscle 1 goes to 50%, then at 75% of muscle 1,crease shape goes to 50%.

then make it start 5 frames before the joint.

So eg:
the muscle bulges slighty before the joint, then the joint rotates, the muscles bulges, which at 50% trigger the crease shape to start.

(muscle-joint rotation-muscle-crease)over skin

The joint isnt driven, the animator still rotates it. But the blendshape when say played back starts slightly before like in real life. You have to do some clever mel script or something. Ill have a go at this in max.

Reading more on the hulk. I relised they mad hundreds of different hulk poses which blended together!. All the major joints!. They had to model 42 different models just for his shoulders! eek!

They drove the pose via joint, but used the hieght and spin of a joint. I suppose like an offset, and not a rotation?

eek [/B]

#139

good point didnt think of that. You dont want the muscles bulging all the time ,but you do want the creases to be formed. You also dont want it to be too complex for the animator. There animating all the movement and now there doing the muscles! A nice simple gui would be cool, that handles say the arms, chest,legs,neck, with a little fall to other areas. So that you can tence up the neck or something.

or maybe two general state for the muscle, so its still automated but the animator,can blend between the muscle strength: slightly on for general purpose or max for when the tenced up. I just think tweaking all the muscles is a lot of work for the animator.

ill try this out in max.

eek

#140

RIC,

I’m the senior project manager for a project at the University of Iowa (USA) that is involved in human motion simulation. We are struggling with the visualization of complex shoulder movements.

I’d be very interested in talking to you if you have the time and inclination.

Feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Steven C. Beck
Senior Project Manager
Virtual Soldier Research program
Center for Computer Aided Design
The University of Iowa
Tel. 319-384-0573
Fax. 319-384-0542
Email. beck@ccad.uiowa.edu
http://www.digital-humans.org