Posted this in another forum too, but this forum seems like a better place to ask.
I am trying to model a cat that I want to rig up with muscles. Does anyone have any good reference of how the topology should look like? Feel like I’m modeling in the blind right now.
This is how far I’ve come.
Am I on the right track or am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Lost a bit of volume after changing the topology many many times. Will address that when I’m happy about with the edgeflows
I’ve found that following the major muscles usually give good results. That said, I would just go ahead and try to set up the sim and try it out- no amount of thinking is going to make up for just trying it out and seeing what you get. Noodling too much on edge flows just leads to frustration and, if you aren’t sure what you’re looking for, not much better results.
Thanks Rob.
I think you are right. Did start to set up a muscle test and saw very clearly where I had problems. The problem is that it is very time consuming to go back and forth even though I’m learning a lot!
If I could just see a wire frame of a quad ped that have muscle sim and think I would have a better understanding of how the mesh is going to move even before venturing far in to the rig. Have seen quite a few demos of the muscles (which is valuable) but not with the wireframe on
Yes that is true, but, as a modeler task is to create edge flows based on what can move and that is not visible during simulation (most simulations are faked anway) but if you ref. your model flow off of real anatomy and joints then, muscle simulation or no, the deformations are going to work much better, even with just plan skinning.
You need to look at the real thing first before you look at the cg stuff because your then creating a copy of a copy and loosing information instead of studying the real anatomy and working your own details.
And when it comes time to setup your muscle rig or just place joints (that by the way need to be placed correctly for the muscles to work well) you are going to have a harder time than needed.
Leonardo lived with horses and made hundred of sketches in order to understand how they moved and where the muscles were before he started to sculpt.
Your best best is to go to a local pet store with a sketch book and camera and see in person how they move and make your notes, reference it with the links you have and then adjust your model and rig accordingly.
This is great! Thank you very much.
Just to make it clear, I don’t considering my self a good modeler. I am rather a character setup artist (mainly focused on facial) that wants to get more in to muscle sim, but I don’t have any characters to work on, so I’m trying to create one myself.
Looking at the video, I can see that I have a bit of work left on the anatomy part
Thanks again Brad, This is very much appreciated!
I’d try to get a hi-rez model of a cat and then re-topo it, then, using cat anatomy as a reference. Also, if model iteration is a bottleneck, that is something to look at maybe before you continue the muscle sim- get your pipeline worked out.
http://vimeo.com/11901510 check out this video for the shoulder edge flow example and then look at how your cat legs are attaching front and back on your mesh…
should help you out , your base shape /form is looking better though.
Thank you for trying to help. I believe I am a lot closer than you think. Not saying it is perfect by any means, but I have a few things factored in that I don’t might have missed. Not sure if you have tried rigging a quad ped with muscle sim. it is quite different from a human despite being the same components.
Here is a illustration of what I am looking at.
Shoulder in blue.
The first and second images look wrong to me. Cats motion comes a lot from the scapula as they have one of the most complex shoulder setups from an anatomical standpoint. It looks to me like a lot of the rotation in the first pose is being driven like a human where the shoulder is the main point of rotation whereas cats have much more rotation from their traps/scapula region. Check out this video of a leopard walking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWoQryux1u8
Overall there shouldn’t be as much volume loss in the shoulder area as there is when the cat’s foot is posed like that.
If you’re looking for reference a site I suggest everyone bookmarks is the BBC Motion Gallery: http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/. When dealing with any sort of animal footage that’s the place to go and get reference imo. Lots of great reference there and you can preview pretty much all of it if you don’t want to purchase.
