rigging with realistic bones and muscles

[Stuh505]

I keep seeing examples of this being done, like WETA's cave troll, and other examples online...but what software/plugins are used for this?

[ross_coe]

Muscle TK from cgtoolkit is a plugin for Maya that does those sort of muscles Looks pretty cool...check it out at:
http://www.cgtoolkit.net/muscletk.htm
and click the "features tour" to see a preview of it in action

And it only cost $99 which seems pretty good for something like that. Altho Maya is gonna set you back a fair bundle

[Stuh505]

cool

[Stuh505]

is this necessarily what WETA used then? because I know they used Maya...I'm just wondering because I can't seem to find any publicity on it, there is no advertisement for what this muscle tk has been used in (movies, games, ?) and I havent heard any comments on it from weta production interviews either

[jinkweon]

The plugon your talking about is also out for max. In lord of the rings I knwo that for those big elephant thing in the last movie, they used something similiar to max's reactor controls. Once the elephant stopped automatically some mesh would jiggle to simulate fat. As for the trolls I have no idea. In shrek 1 they used a similiar program that they created themselves. They used it in there characters to get good flexes. I dought that the act is used in gaming unless it is used in the animtion sequences. I would think that that would be too much data or information for the games to handle.

[jinkweon]

plugin* Sorry I mispell alot.

[finch]

There are other plug-ins out there that can do it as well, such as
ACT, which i remember seeing in a magazine or somewhere. Im not sure what the web address is.

I also remember doing a tutorial ages ago which shouwed you how using primitives in maxscript you could create your own muscles, but it was a bit crude. My solution is a bit cride as well, but can work and you can do it without any plugins. Im not sure if it works because its a theory, but if anyone wishes to test it out, tell me if it turns out ok!

Create your primitives in the shape of the muscles, low poly is fine, as long as you have enough polys in the final mesh to cover this. You need to attach them to the appropriate bone at the appropriate place, so when you move the bone, it moves with it. This is where my theory falls down.

You can then attach it to the skin and the muscle will deform the skin, only the muscle itself will not deform, but stay the same shape. You could either, attach a flex modifier to the muscle, (love the flex!) and let its secondary animation do its stuff, but i dont think it will be a strong enough movement. Or you can set up reactions between the muscle and the bone, eg, if the forearm moves here, then the muscle will contract. This will show the muscle moving, and will keep it consistent throughout the whole animation. The problem with these is if you think how long it takes to get a good rig up and running, add the time to create and rig the muscles to it and you are looking at a long long time. The bonus is of course if you set up a complete skeleton, then it should be scaleable and you should be able to adapt it to whatever you need, and therefore dont need to create another one, as long as you can get the settings from one to another.

Its the same priocess as using say a sphere in the chest of a character, animating it to make a heart beat, and then skinning it. Just a little more long winded. On the whole, I would rather have the plugin, as I have a long way to go on perfecting this technique, but If i ever get it done, ill show you how properly!!!!

edit: I just remembered something. In max's own skinning setup, you have deformers for this purpose, so that after you have animated, anywhere where the muscle or skin doesnt look like it is natural, you can add a deformer. Joint, angle and muscle deformers i think they are. Ive never used them, but I know that this is the precise purpose of them. Say the character flexes his arm, but there is no bicep. You just edit the settings of the skin and the deformer, and it works out the angles for you. I think. Better read up on that one though!

2nd edit
they are joint, angle and bulge deformers....gizmos that are there when you use the max skinning modifier