Lesson 3: Editing Muscles

User Guide > Rigging > Maya Muscle > Maya Muscle Advanced Techniques > Rigging muscles >

Each muscle you create using the Muscle Creator is constrained to two separate attach locators on each end. These locators are parented to the joints you specified when you first created the muscle. You can move these locators to better represent your muscle mass and shape. Here, you adjust them so that the muscle surface wraps around the front leg.

NoteYou can reparent the muscles to different joints of your rig by reparenting the muscle attach locators.

Load the scene

Load the Sabertooth_Edit_Muscle_Locators_Start.mb.
This scene contains the sabertooth tiger with capsulated bones and a front leg muscle, which has been set in all three pose states.
Select the front leg muscle.
In the Muscle Creator, switch to the Edit tab.
The lower part of the Edit tab lists all the different cross section controls and attach points available for the selected muscle.
Locate the Attach Locs section and CTRL+Select locMus_L_FrontLeg_End1 and locMus_L_FrontLeg_End2.
This selects both end locators of your leg muscle.
Lower the position of these locators on the Y axis using the Move tool until they are near the tiger’s ankle. Then move them on the z-axis until they are in front of humerus joint.
Notice that the muscle surface stretches to compensate for the new locators’ positions.
Select locMus_L_FrontLeg_Start1 and move it close to the base of the humerus joint, by the side of the leg facing outwards.
Select locMus_L_FrontLeg_Start2 and move it next to locMus_L_FrontLeg_Start1.

Notice that each cross section control along the muscle surface individually rotates to compensate for the new locators’ positions.
Scrub through the animation to see how the muscle behaves based on its new shape.

Beyond the Lesson

In this lesson you learned how to better shape your muscle by adjusting its attach locators. A completed file for this lesson, Sabertooth_Edit_Muscle_Locators_End.mb, can be found in the sample directory. Now you are ready to adjust the length and shape of the muscle surface.