Hi folks,
When posing a human figure in a static pose, there are only certain poses that would actually work in the real world before the figure falls over.
Are there any tools or visual aids that give an indication of how realistic a pose is in terms of real world physics?
Like some indication of the stresses placed on certain muscles in any given pose?
Thanks in advance!
A photo reference of the pose in question, preferably in the nude, will do wonders here
It’s a generic question, I’m using Blender to learn figure drawing and want to know if there are any tools that allow one to access that real world balance of any pose!
I don’t have knowledge of specific resources in Blender that would solve that right away.
But through your question, I can conceive the certain uses of Physics in Blender, in order to try to simulate a generic Gravity pull on different points/volumes of interest (with manually set, different Mass inputs), inside an Object.
For example, the free Wiggle 2 Addon (for later versions of Blender), for each “Wiggle Bone” that is Enabled to work with this Addon’s Physics inputs, can hold special settings for “Gravity” but also for “Mass”
In this way, it might be plausible to create a “Ghost/Fake Skeleton” (an Armature Object), which purpose is not for Rigging, but just for calculating the amount of ‘gravity pull’ over time (by playing the Timeline) for each relevant part of the character’s Body Model.
However, that approach would be experimental, and might be challenging if ever useful; but it seems at least plausible to me, that something can be achieved: one primordial step would be the ‘gravity pull’ differentiate outputs by the setup on the Bones (in this Wiggle 2 Addon example), another step would be some sort of Automation… which might be much, much harder than just having the software giving some maths or visual outputs.
More thought would be required; but it’s an interesting question.
You should check some Blender tutorial ideas on Youtube, about ‘Rag Doll Rig’, I believe this can give you some insight; it uses in-built Physics.
Yes, try to do the pose yourself. If you fall flat on your face due to gravity, then chances are the balance is off.
Funny as this is, there are plenty of people who won’t be able to do it for a variety of reasons, including having drastically different body shape and/or physical abilities from the person being depicted. It’s a legit question.
Hence my comment about a nude posed photo. There’s no “trick” or mathematical simulation for this, every body is different and there’s simply no way to say if a certain mesh can pose in a certain way. If a photo can do it and your mesh has a similar body to the photo, it probably works.
Fat distribution, body fat percentage, muscle tone, athletic training, balancing ability, proportions, foot size, mood, anxiety levels, and even inner ear sensitivity all affect this- these aren’t variables that can be plugged into an equation, it’s just too individualized and complex.
I think the best example of this is the Olympic women’s gymnastics beam finals- those gymnasts did poses none of us could do without falling during warm-ups, but they all whiffed their balance on the beam due to nerves. That’s not something that can be mathematically accounted for
Yeah, I did actually have that in mind at the time I posted and sure, if your character is a near super human ninja, then no doubt many of us would have problems replicating the move. Still, it’s worth a basic try (if you can) to get some idea of how the pose feels.
I can even give a direct example. When I was blocking my little test animation for my Nyssa character, I had the hand pull down the blind how I thought it would.
I then actually went to try and do it myself and without thinking about it, actually had my hand 180 around the other way.
Nothing like some real world reference.
