Bones being used as armatures?

I wasnt sure where to post this, but I was wondering, if you created a skeleton (like literally scoped out all 260 someodd bones) then could you somehow use that as an armature?

I was thinking of creating a human by using A real bone structure as the base, then creating muscles and veins, and then putting skin on it, because I believe this would give an amazingly realistic effect…but Im unsure if I could then use the actual bone structure as an armature in the end to drive and move the bones…I suppose the skin would also somehow have to be shrinkwrapped to the body, and when the body moves it moves around the shrinkwrapping (causing muscle flow)…but Im not sure if there is a way to make it work like this?

m not sure about the bones but you actually want to put skin ONTOP of muscle? you do realise how much deformation that is right? like mesh ontop of mesh ontop of bone. Im not doubting you, im just saying it sounds a little too much.

but if you try it, you’re a better man than i am.

p.s. wouldnt the bone structure have to be written in python? and therefore it would be just as easier and more efficient to use the existing system. you’d have to go through all kinds of testing. i just finished watching the sintel commentary on cessen’s rigging. he said that he and campbell were writing the script for the meta rig for two months solid. that might give you an idea of what your could be looking at.

thats all fine and dandy, but think of the uses? You would have ten times more realistic humans, or animals!
I have some evidence that the makers of Ant Bully, used a similar method to produce a frog for the movie, and the fly thats inside the frogs stomach during the movie! And if you watch the movie, you may notice some subtle little muscle flares, which really increases visual conception, and helps your character alot…think how hard it is to actually produce a character that is cabable of having a human like muscular system, if you notice, regular bones dont allow the skin, and upper muscles to reacte to them as they should, really hurting the renders believe-ability…

So yes, i am going to try this, if nothing more than to say that I have done it.

sorry if my last post sounded all kinds of negative…as the time code suggests, it was really late in the night. anyway, i may have misunderstood.

let me carify, you want to:

  1. create a full human skeleton, and use python to turn that into a full functioning armaure rig.
  2. lay a muscle layer ontop but follow much the same path as the skeleton. possibly having it be the main deformer? like real human muscle. when it flexes, the skin follows sort of thing.
  3. put a mesh-based skin layer ontop as the child of the heirachy.

so bone instructs muscle > muscle deforms skin> skin behaves to a degree not usually seen without being the worlds best animator.

is that the sort of thing that you are talking about? if that is then it sounds amazing, if it can be done.

  1. this system means that you would have to have a complete idea of the character’s appearence from the get go, no? because no two human skeletons are the same (apart from twins) meaning you couldn’t construct a skull, for instance, and have it be in the same vein as the metarig. The facial features and the proportions of what makes us individual (asthetically, anyway) would be identical. and so how would you go about designing a character, given that more detail must be planned for the bones?

A possible solution would be to construct the skeleton leaving out the face. Also having each bone as scalabe as normal armature bones. Then for the facial features and any individually defining features on the body, you could possibly follow a similar process to that of UV, but in reverse. (if you understand me). That would go, contruct the skeleton (minus face) then use a script that unwraps your design of a characters head and you click on certain points of the unwrapped face, defining where certain features lie.

or for greater definition, use a bone topology painting system. This could be a script that, like the above suggestion, you point out where the facial feaures lie, like a cheek bone and use the paint (like weight paint) to define the the shape of that cheek bone. The darker the colour in one spot of the map, the higher the bone rises sort of thing. and it might work in reverse.

or a simpler option might be to maybe just sculpt the facial bones. and some how tell blender how to animate them.

these are just some bouncing balls but run with them if you think they might work.

another question is, having the muscle layer ontop of bone, does this make the need for FK/IK switching and all things in this constraint type unnecessary? given that the muscle on a human bone has limits to movement? meaning that only one type of kinnematic would control the movement?]

i dont know if any of this makes sense, but let me know if the ideas are a help.

Something like this maybe?

yes actually just like that, except the muscles bounce too much, but yes, basically creating an ascthetically correct body

one problem though, there is no intertwining beins, so you couldnt make the veins pop in the head and the neck

I actually thought about doing something like that myself. And then use it for brutal rip apart animations or somethin…
But i don’t see any other possible way to rig it, just bones.

ok, so I wouldnt use actual bones? I would use a bone rig or something along those lines?

It might be possible to do using a few tricks, but it may be extremely slow to animate after having all the IK’s, modifiers, and constraints done (perhaps less than 1 frame per second).

Do you have a high end computer right now, you might need one if you want to try this.

ha no…my house burned down…im using a library computer right now to check emails ;D

lol he meant a ‘high end computer’ not an ordinary one. Anyways i think you already have couple of high end stuff so get to work soldier. ;D For poping viens u can just use an animated normal map, I dont think anybody want to rig his character to sub-atomic level. :wink:

I tried the link to the developers site and it doesn’t work. Has the developer stopped developing this? Isn’t this “BlenRig” just like the new Meta Rig in Blender?

sort of, and also, I do have a couple high end items (like a really nice computer)

and my house burned down with them inside…sooooo I dont really have that much any more

also, I believe its still in developement, but Im unsure where, or how…maybe email ton roosendal?