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New Muscle-system In Houdini 8.1


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I also wanted to post this question .... but... the answer I read here arent what I'd expected :( ... since.. I loaded the scene.. and Read the help about auto rig (which scene uses) but i still didnt got "how to create such muscles"... the Muscles SOP seems not present in that scene... so.. again.. how to create such metaball muscles setup?

cheers :)

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The usual (is there such a thing)workflow uses the Muscle OBJECT and not the SOP.

In the "Skeleton_capture_rig" subnet you have some subnets ("L_triceps" for example) which contain the Muscle Objects. It has nothing to do with the Auto-rig (for now, at least). The Muscle Object and the Muscle SOP have their own help pages.

hdox://houdini/content/base/whatsnew_81_hilites.html

Dragos

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I know about Muscles OBJ and SOP .. but in the muscles exchange sample scene... ther's the autorig setup if i'm not wrong.. there's no Muscle OBJ or SOP there... but since i'm new to rigging in houdini... (and with this new features at first) i can be totally wrong....

btw.. in the Muscles OBJ and SOP.. i cant find "how" to apply the effect.. i just can find the description of the effect itself.. which is cool... but i still need to understand how to create it :)

cheers

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I know about Muscles OBJ and SOP .. but in the muscles exchange sample scene... ther's the autorig setup if i'm not wrong.. there's no Muscle OBJ or SOP there... but since i'm new to rigging in houdini... (and with this new features at first) i can be totally wrong....

btw.. in the Muscles OBJ and SOP.. i cant find "how" to apply the effect.. i just can find the description of the effect itself.. which is cool... but i still need to understand how to create it :)

cheers

27863[/snapback]

A muscle is constructed by providing "anchor" inputs. So, if you have a 2 bone chain, place a Muscle Object in the network pane and then connect to its inputs the two bones from your chain. You will get a muscle from the start of the first bone to the start of the other. You can connect multiple inputs and the muscle wil be shaped like a spline, passing through all those inputs.

As I wrote before, in the Shoulder_muscle scene form the Exchange you will find a "Skeleton_capture_rig" subnet. Enter it and there are a bunch of subnets, for the muscle groups (for example, "L_triceps"). Enter one of those subnets and you will find how the muscle objects are connected.

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  • 2 months later...

HI

I am checking exchange file , and trying to setup my own muscle.

I read help contents, but main trouble I have is with seting muscle shape

I cant figure out how to blend all three profiles to get nice biceps shaped fallof of volume toward anchors

any help welcome

z

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  • 2 weeks later...

that was not my question, i wanna know i i can capture geometry with the muscles....

i hope someone of the masters can put there a hip file......wich show me all the stuff i had to know.

please.............

I Love Houdini and i wanna win the Houdini Contest to get the Houdini Master License........at Home.....for me alone...... i hate it, to go to my teacher's computer to play with houdini

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

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The basic capturing workflow is similar to what one would do with bones. When using the Capture Geometry tool at the object level, change the Type of capture from Regions to Metaball. After that, Paint Capture Layer can be used to adjust influences amongst different muscles. There's much more to it of course but that should get you started. Oh, and remember that the skin geometry that gets captured are the points inside (or roughly on) the metaball surface.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The basic capturing workflow is similar to what one would do with bones. When using the Capture Geometry tool at the object level, change the Type of capture from Regions to Metaball. After that, Paint Capture Layer can be used to adjust influences amongst different muscles. There's much more to it of course but that should get you started. Oh, and remember that the skin geometry that gets captured are the points inside (or roughly on) the metaball surface.

So your saying that after I set up my autoRig, I should just use Metaballs at Object level that follow my character and deform it's skin. This shouldn't be inside the autoRig or captureRig somewhere?

There is a skeleton muscle rig example up on SESI but I'm confused since it uses Blend OPs instead of the new animationRig and captureRig but does have the new autoRig (might be because it's from 8.1 beta, designer said he would update it later with skin attributes).

I thought I could place Metaballs or Muscle OPs inside of the captureRig.

Really like the autoRig 8.1 feature just want to have a little extra control with muscle deforms.

~Shawn

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  • 4 weeks later...

Im playing with the houdini muscle system, and Im very happy with it. It is fast if I decrease the display LOD, by default it takes long to cook. One thing I dont understand is why the Side Effects autorig otl is so slooooow, and If you get the other one, with the shoulder setup, it's sloooower (scary).

I dont believe the "object oriented" solution works well for complex setups. Having the same solution, one object oriented, another hard coded, the second one is much faster (less clean), my choice for realtime feedback.

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One thing I dont understand is why the Side Effects autorig otl is so slooooow...

Yep, this rig isn't the snappiest rig in existence, but there are a few things (and some are just obvious) you can do to alleviate it somewhat:

  • Use the Proxy geometry mechanism instead looking at fully weighted skin.
  • If you're using the Muscle system, I believe it's possible to enable multithreading on the SOP. This is only of recent builds of 8.1. Do you have 8.1.704?
  • Maximize your viewport window. It seems that if you have your parameter pane visible that the act of redrawing it can be pretty time-consuming. Merely hide it and feel the difference. This might be dependent on the video-card in your machine too, since some are not as fast on the 2D UI draws.
  • Hang in there :) I've heard that SESI are continually working on optimizations to speed up these types of interactions.

I wouldn't be surprised if Arctor had some hints for optimization since he is disgustingly familiar with AutoRigs... Arctor?

Good luck,

Jason

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[*]If you're using the Muscle system, I believe it's possible to enable multithreading on the SOP. This is only of recent builds of 8.1. Do you have 8.1.704?

I got version 8.1.704, but I didnt find multithreading on muscles sop.

Anyway, Im creating bones and muscles from scratch , thats is very fast for interaction, and results are very very good. I will post a test movie later.

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nice, looking good!

I've been meaning to jupm into this thread but as Jason mentioned I am "disgustingly familiar with AutoRigs"...and it's taking a huge amount of my time and effort...we're doing many new things and so it's a learning/RnD/production type thing...nasty...

but keep posting questions/problem....

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nice, looking good!

I've been meaning to jupm into this thread but as Jason mentioned I am "disgustingly familiar with AutoRigs"...and it's taking a huge amount of my time and effort...we're doing many new things and so it's a learning/RnD/production type thing...nasty...

but keep posting questions/problem....

Well, I didnt use auto rig on that setup, but I would use it for fast setups.

I discover that skining with metaballs is so powerfull and nice.

Now we are needing some kind of hair growing soultion !!! :rolleyes:

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