9/4/2023 0 Comments Houdini sidefx plans![]() ![]() This is already possible, though: we can take the muscles ‘as is’ and send them for simulation. to simulate the muscle dynamics in Vellum. Secondly, we plan to add a possibility of using the toolset in Vellum, i.e. I mean that we want to make its structure similar to the vellum toolset or the grooming toolset in Houdini. This will make the data flow more open for users and will enable users to interfere with some aspects of work of the toolset at various levels. We will probably start with reorganizing the architecture of the entire toolset and dividing it into several practical nodes. On the other hand, we have already made publicly available our proprietary shaders, including the principled shader among others so, maybe we will do the same with our muscle toolset in the near future, but no promises.Īs for our development plans, we have a lot of ideas, because we have gained a great deal of experience and understanding where to go next with developments. It is unlikely that we will monetize or sell it, perhaps we will make it publicly available, but so far, we have not thought about it. To be honest, we did not think about commercializing the muscle toolset somehow. This was, I believe, the major challenge in this work, because all the parameters were not uniform over the skin surface. In addition to selecting six parameters, we had to figure out different values for different spots on the Alien’s body (arm, belly, tail, head, etc.), because the skin might be rougher in one area and more elastic in another, and different areas required different combinations of values for these parameters. We built a prototype and processed it in wedge to define which parameters fit best (there were six or more parameters). We applied the same method to configuring the skin parameters. Since it is impossible to review or download and evaluate several tens of thousands simulations and choose the only one, we wrote a small proprietary cache loader to speed up the evaluation of simulations visually. We have our proprietary tool to quickly evaluate these simulation options by changing the values of the parameters in real time and seeing how the result changes accordingly. ![]() We took the skin already created by that moment, and adjusted the settings so that it could tear and we could indirectly control the process for artistic purposes. Therefore, it took us about 2-2.5 weeks to simulate skin tearing, and the task was not very demanding. We had already had a wealth of experience in Vellum, particularly, in creating skin and other organic elements in it. To create this aspect of the skin movement, we spent some time and wrote several lines of code in VEX.īy the way, Vellum has now the 18th version of sliding constraints, which solve, by at least 90%, the task we were solving before they were released, so we actually invented them for ourselves.Īs for skin tearing, we worked on this shot after the character was created. We spent a lot of time and effort to customize a solution for Vellum (for skin simulation), as the skin was not a trivial object: on the one hand, it should freely move over the entire surface, which, in turn, constantly changed on the other hand, the skin should not get detached from the surface (to some limits), because there was no air under the skin, and if the skin was pulled at some spot, the surrounding areas were strained, but not detached from the surface, unlike a fabric laying on a surface with some air beneath. This was a multi-step and multi-stage simulation structure. As we used only wire solver to simulate the muscle dynamics, we figured out that it would be better to use muscles only for controlling the skinning of the character, and then to add a layer of secondary dynamics over them, for which FEM could be used. We realized that the muscle dynamics and the dynamics of soft tissues in general should be more realistic and fine. We built and refined its entire muscle framework: about 120 muscles in the body. This took us a lot of time, about two months. The Alien should always look naturally and correctly in any positions taking into account its anatomy. Not only was it necessary to figure out how to make it look convincing and natural, but it was also necessary to ensure that these muscles were, literally, functioning. In addition to using some known muscle patterns, we had to devise and develop the alien anatomy, thinking of how its muscles might work and be attached within its body. Despite its anthropomorphous anatomy (it has two arms and two legs) and symmetry, the Alien has an unusual structure of the head, body, shoulder and hip joints. Then we added muscles using our muscle toolset which allowed us to quickly add muscles of various groups. That is why we started working on the skeleton. ![]()
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