UT3 Character with Muscle System

[barnesy]

For my final year project I am looking into how muscle systems are used in next gen game characters. Exporting charcters into game engines is new to me so im not really that familliar with actorx.
So far I have created and refined the base mesh, exported it to zbrush and began sculpting for the normal map and retop.
Heres the head concept (as you can tell hes not a looker)



and heres the zbrush sculpting (even uglier)



The challenge here is the muscle system. I know how to create one with skinfx.....just not how to export that into unreal. Im going to have to play around with it.
If any of you could point me in the right direction I would be so grateful , SERIOUSLY! xD

[barnesy]

Heres an update of the sculpt. Im just blocking out the basic muscle forms. As you can tell im basing the body on my own xD



Ive decided to change the design while at a level where I can export back to MAX. Im going to make the books knee height as they look really silly on him now. Also im creating a cloth slash drape for the groin area as well as an armour pad. This is simply because I dont want it to be just a straight up anatomical experiment with stupid boots, but an actual character with personality and style.
Crits are welcome as always cheers

[barnesy]

I decided to make the traps smaller, might change them back. I also longer boots to give the character better proportions. The skeleton beneath the mesh is Epics Male skeleton for reference.



Currently I am re difining the muscles and ading detail to the boots. Ill post another update when I have more done :|
Cheers

[barnesy]

-update-

Heres some more progress. Ive been really ficusing on getting the anatomy correct. I really strugglled on getting the back looking real rather than one big but crack...literally..it went in way too much haha.
I should hopefully have the anatomy finished today so that I can start the fine detailing like the skin surface and the tears in the serratus and external obliques muscles aswell.



I still have yet to figure out what approch I am going to take when creating the muscle simulatiion. People have told me that I can use morph targets and normal map blends to simulate the muscle changing. Sounds very tricky though!

[barnesy]

Heres an update of the sculpting progress. The overall anatomy of the character is far more convincing now. I have also sculpted some chunky boots for him

[Megabiv]

As Lloyd Christmas once said "Killer boots man!". But seriously i do like the boots, im going to have to stop being such a wuss and start getting back into this Zbrush stuff.

[barnesy]

As Lloyd Christmas once said "Killer boots man!". But seriously i do like the boots, im going to have to stop being such a wuss and start getting back into this Zbrush stuff.

haha thanks man
As the old saying goes , practice makes perfect. If thats the case i need a heck of alot of practice too (y)

-update-
Heres a quick update to show how the retopologizing the sculpt. Im really trying to model the edgeflow around the major forms. You may wounder why the body has the same amount , if, not more polys? Its because I want as many edge loops on the body for the muscle deformation.




Theres a large amount of pinching beneath the arms and where the horns join on to the head. I dont know if any of you guys have had this before? I think that itll be a case of smoothing it out with the smooth brush when it is finished.

As for the muscle simulation itself I am going to create tweo sculpts. One Flexed and one relaxed. Im going to play around with skin fx to see how i can get muscles to deform beneath the skin and create a clean simulation of muscle deformation.

Im open to any crits and suggestions if you may have any \o/

[Bananna_manuk]

idk how relevent this might be but have you looked at morph targets to do your muscle deformation deeny has a quick video on it udk_morph_target_track_walkthrough he uses the udk and maya tho dunno if it'll be any use :P

[barnesy]

idk how relevent this might be but have you looked at morph targets to do your muscle deformation deeny has a quick video on it udk_morph_target_track_walkthrough he uses the udk and maya tho dunno if it'll be any use :P

Thanks Banana.

I am thinking of using morph targets as well as normal map blending to simulate muscle deformation. Do you know of any similar videos for 3ds max as that is what i am currently using. I have skinfx at the moment. I think that will be my best bet at making morph targets/bendy bones

As you can see Im not very certain as to which technique will be more efficent :s

[barnesy]

I have finished the other modules that I had to do alongside this one. I recieved alot of criticism for the overall anatomy of the character.
Here is an update of my efforts to fix this problem. I also have to re address the amount of armour that is distributed throughout the character as it seems unbalanced at the moment with the large boots and waist peace on just skin.
Let me know what you guys think
Thanks

[barnesy]

Hey guys, does anyone know where I could find a pre made skeleton like the one below (Marcus) For Unreal?



I need a IK skeleton for my project so that i can rig my character to it and experiment with morph targets
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

[barnesy]

I have found out that i dont actually need to create such a complex bone system and that a simple character studio bipd will be fine.
I have been battling GoMax all day as it seems to scale my model up all the time . The next issue i face is finding out how to bake the diffuse texture from the high polly onto the low poly if thats even possible

[VACkillers]

this looks amazing.. keep up the brilliant work dude