Amazing muscle rig

i came across this today and it blew my mind a bit but it has also made me realise the true importance of muscles in rigging and how, if they are used properly, they can give amazing result.

Muscles

I am struggling to find a lot of helpful learning material about maya muscle. There are a few basic tutorials around but nothing i cannot find anything that goes into very much detail.

This has been the most useful tutorial as it gave me a starting point and from there i have just been playing around with the muscle builder and working out what the different parameters do

completed skeleton and controls

i have now complted the set up of my bone structure and controls. the controls are labelled above.

i have set up driven keys on certain controls like the hands for instance. If i want to animate the hand into a fist there is an attribute i created called fist and all i have to do is turn that up and the hand goes into a fist. I did a similar thing with the feet to create a footroll. This will save a lot of time when animating aswell as giving a nice feel to the motion.

There is an IKFKblend attribute on the wrist controls aswell which allows me to change how i am animating the arms. this was also created using driven keys.

Bone rigging in maya

I have changed my mind again and will now be creating the rig inside of Maya.

There are a few reasons for this.
The first is that i have previously rigged a character in 3ds max and would like to try something new.
The second is that from looking into the process’ a little further i feel that maya is a more powerful tool to rig with. I feel the paint weights tool is more intuitive in Maya and the built in Maya Muscle system is something i am very keen to learn

To create the skeleton i have looked around and found different ways of doing it. I have been watching a lot of online tutorials to get ideas and have come across this playlist which i will be loosely following to create my rig

i am currently setting up the legs and feet of the rig with various controls to allow for easy animating late.

Human anatomy

i have been spending a lot of time looking at human anatomy and will continue to reference it throughout the rigging process. it will be very useful for joint placement and making sure the muscles are working properly

CAtrig

 

 

Muscle testing

i have been wanting to learn about using muscles to deform rigs rather than the bones themselves for some time.

i came across this tutorial which was a really useful and simple introduction to it
http://area.autodesk.com/louis_tutorials/creating_muscles_in_3ds_max

Here is what i produced from following the tutorial

there are also some very powerful muscle tools in maya that i have been looking at, as seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1mpJp3YJvs

I probably won’t use muscles to rig the zombie character as it is quite a simple character wearing baggy clothing however i am finding it useful and interesting to learn about and it may come in useful it i come across any problems with the rigging that i cannot solve with just bones or CAT

rigging research

I have spent the last few days looking at different approaches to rigging and where they are appropriate.

i have been trying to decide between using CAT or Bones to rig the character. As it is quite a simple mesh and character i am not sure that i will need bones as they tend to be used for more complex characters however i may still use them as it is something i would like to learn.

I am still not sure so i am thinking of creating a couple of quick tests with each to help me decide.

Anatomy Research

In order to create a good rig i will need a good undestanding of the anatomy of the character.  This is because it will help me allocate the influence of the bones to get a realistic inal result

in the past i have spent a lot of time looking at human anatomy whilst sculpting characters as it is also vital to getting a realistic sculpt, because of this i already feel quite comfortable with the subject and have stockpiled a lot of reference. i have especially looked at the muscels in the face and how they interact and i feel this will be very helpful when doing the facial rig for the project.