Character Muscle deformer

The Inflate operator uses other deforming surfaces to push a skin surface. Use it to make a character’s skin surface react to underlying muscles and bones.

  1. Model the bones, skin, and muscles.

  2. Animate the size and shape of the muscle, or set up a deformer to automatically drive the size and shape of the muscle according to the bone angle.

  3. The Inflate operator needs two pieces of “tool” geometry to calculate the push on the skin surface.

    Depending on which is more convenient, you can either configure Inflate to use two primitive groups within a single piece of geometry, or use two separate geometry inputs for the “tool” and “center” surfaces.

  4. Use the tab menu to create an Inflate node.

  5. Connect the skin surface to the Inflate node’s first input.

    If you are using two groups within a single geometry input to represent the “tool” and “center” surfaces, connect the geometry to the Inflate node’s second input, then set the Tool group and Center group parameters to the group names. If you are using two separate geometry inputs, connect the “tool” geometry to the second input, and the “center” geometry to the third input.