[CGMann]

Hiya..

I made this test today and thought some of you might be interested in seeind the results..

YouTube Link

The arm is moved about with bones, but the skin around the bicep is using cloth simulation and a ball-shaped object underneath is pushing it out.

[Cowprobe]

This is a step in the right direction.

This is an object based animation and not just a mesh being morphed?

Building a person out of component shapes seems harder to do than merely moving a rigged surface.

What sort of programs are you using? The cloth deformation suggests Poser.

Here's hoping you get the results you're after.  8)

[CGMann]

> This is an object based animation and not just a mesh being morphed?

No morphing.  It's a combination of bones & cloth sim.

> Building a person out of component shapes seems harder to do than merely moving a rigged surface.

It is harder.  You gotta model not just the skin but the underlying muscle groups.  But more flexible and realistic results.  For example, the under-muscles can be morphed / grown to just about any size without the skin tearing or other distortions due to the geometry and nearby bone influence.  Hard to explain.. But if you wanna have a character's muscles grow, this is the best way to do it.

> What sort of programs are you using? The cloth deformation suggests Poser.

Lightwave v9.6

> Here's hoping you get the results you're after.

Thanks. 🙂

[Reason]

Wow, I've been looking for a solution like this ever since I first got interested in computer graphics 15 years ago! It looks like the technology has finally caught up! Does LightWave offer any sort of dynamic muscle object or do you have to animate the muscles by hand?

[CGMann]

Is there a button that I can push that says "Make Muscles" ?  Nope.  But there are tools for automating various kinds of behaviors.  I just uploaded another version of the same animation.. This time with a texture on it so you can see the skin sliding.  Perhaps the technology isn't quite there yet..  At least, not in native Lightwave.  I do have my eye on an alternative cloth simulation as a plugin, SyFlex, but it's $2k.  SyFlex has been used specifically for simulated skin (and I think it won Oscars for it).  I just can't afford it quite yet.  :-

[Reason]

Yeah, tell me about it! LightWave itself is way out of my price range, so…, yeah. Apparently someone is working on a muscle plugin for Blender, so perhaps that could make this sort of thing more affordable. By the way, have you seen the work of 3dmuscilzer. He seems to be at a similar stage to you, but not sure if he's using the same technique or not.

[Tonus]

CGMan that demo looks great, and that's a clever way to handle skin deformation.  From some of the "making of" videos I've seen, some animation studios take that same route.  I know that in the video showing how they made "Shrek" the 3D animators had built an underlying muscle structure for most of Shrek's body.

Reason, I know that many 3D packages have some method of skin deformation (trueSpace does, I'm pretty sure Hash Animation Master does).  The trick is figuring out how a particular one works and then going through the effort required to get it to look the way you want, which can take a while.

And there is hope!  When I had purchased Lightwave (v5.x I think) many years ago, the package cost something like $2100 and I got a "great deal" at $1600.  These days the full package sells for $900, less from some resellers.  That's still a heck of a lot of money, but the trend has been downwards (I remember when packages like Houdini cost $17,000 and up.  Ewwwww).

[CGMann]

Thanks Tonus.  That alternate version of the video I uploaded last night never took.  Appearantly YouTube doesn't like the Sorenson video codec.  I have re-uploaded it and it's live now.

[10-4]

That is looking good. You're off to an excellent start.

[CGMann]

Thanks 10-4.  Unfortunately I will not be fleshing this out into a complete character right now.  Too much work on my plate at the moment.  It was just a test.  After I get SyFlex I'll do another.

[Author]

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