If I do get around to doing anything on this, this would be the approach I take. I’m not terribly keen on all in one solutions. I was thinking of looking at a object deformer/skin bind type of modifier that could be used to deform a mesh based on the deformations of another object, with parameters for stickiness/sliding, falloff etc. Tension mapping looks pretty interesting as well.
@Steve S: cool, I didn’t know about that one. Worth noting that its is just a frame change handler writing to vgroups, so should work with anything. Ideally it would be nice to have this as a modifier, but that script should work fine.
Here’s a video about using a displacement map to create tendons and muscle details. If you used this along with Shape Keys for the large-scale muscle bulging you could probably get some very convincing results.
Hi there,
I’ve only recently joined Blender artists and so don’t have many posts yet so wanted to say hello.
Anyway I thought this is a really interesting thread.
The displacement map video above is great and also the tension map demo.
I have to agree with a couple of the other posts here.
If Weta or ILM picked up Blender for a new cinematic epic then they would use their own systems for things like muscle deformation. I can’t see this would be a big issue if they were deciding to pick Blender up for the animation or modeling. As mentioned before it would mainly come down to pipeline compatability.
I’ve just never been fully convinced of the real project workflow practicality of most of the off the shelf muscle sims in some of the other 3D animation apps. Especially after trying to work with several of them.
For all the time and effort they need to set anything up properly. And also the playback and render time usability vs the final results they offer. It just doesn’t seem worth the trouble most of the time.
Also… and someone might shoot me down for this. But I think that a lot muscle sims done on a limited budget with off the shelf systems tend to just draw attention to themselves a bit too much. Not so much another level of authenticity and realism. Often just some odd distracting blobby water balloon shapes jiggling and moving around. It might look passible on a highly stylized monster creature but not much else.
So much old fashioned traditional artistry goes towards making a compelling and believable creature character. Convincing design and modeling and good animation must come first. I would be a bit cautious in getting too caught up focusing in on complex muscle systems as a be all and end all.
I think unless you have the large scale staffing and R&D resources of a Weta, ILM or Framestore then a full muscle sim of the kind you see demonstrated in all the making of… docs is very hard to work with and make look very good. Especially working within tight budgets and deadlines.
My own experiences are that the most effective system in most working cases and the best off the shelf method to go for, is a combination of bone driven shape keys, displacements and jiggle constraints. Possibly also the ability to add a few influence objects here and there as in Maya.
This is the way it’s been done in pretty much all of the past TV documentary and game FMV projects I’ve worked on. It can give very pleasing, effective and subtle results. It’s infinitely tweak-able and it’s very easy to work with and perfect the look when you might be under a lot of time and money pressure.
I think right now that surely this must be the most practical solution to work towards first in a genuinely useful and effective ( off the shelf ) muscle, flesh and bone system for Blender.
Also these are all features that have multiple other uses as well.
Blender is already great for setting up shape keys and displacements to be driven with bone rotations.
What about working towards the strengths already there in the armature system, and trying to build more functionality into the actual bones.
Firstly, just in the bones constraint options. An easy and simple jiggle or spring constraint would be an absolute must. Then it would be possible to set up jiggle node bones attached and imbedded within the armature object. This when combined with bone driven shape keys could be a really nice and flexible solution.
But would it be possible to go further and expand the deform property’s of the bones too. So that added to twist and bend could be some simple soft body effects ? I’m not sure how possible or practical this 2nd idea would be. But still it seems to make the most sense to me to try and see what could be done to expand the armature object in-built functionality before trying anything else.
Wasn’t the bone spring constraint already being worked on ? Does anyone know where it’s at. It would be a fantastic asset to have for any creature rig set up.