Lesson 5: Sculpting Muscles
 
 
 

After a muscle is created, you can edit its cross section curves to sculpt the muscle into its shape you want. The Muscle Creator’s sculpting controls let you choose which pose state and axis to edit, and provide sliders to help you better adjust the muscle surface.

Note Make sure you select the desired pose state before editing your muscle. If multiple states are selected at once, changes you make on the muscle surface are reflected in all selected states.

Open the scene for the lesson

  1. Load the Sabertooth_Sculpt_Muscle_Start.mb file.

    This scene contains the sabertooth tiger with capsulated bones, a front leg muscle, and a neck muscle which has been set in all three pose states.

  2. Select Muscle > Muscles/Bones > Muscle Creator from the main menu bar to open the Muscle Creator.
  3. Click the Edit tab.
  4. Select the neck muscle or select cMuscleSurfaceShapeMus_L_Neck1 in the Attribute Editor.

    The neck muscle in the current rest state needs to be thinner on its Z axis.

  5. In the Sculpting section, make sure only the Z axis and Rest parameters are selected.

  6. Drag the Sculpt slider halfway to the left, or until the muscle loses its tube-shape and looks more like a flat strip.

    Tip You can drag the Sculpt slider in repetition to increment the deformation impact on your muscle mass.
    Deselect the Z axis and select the X axis in the Rest parameter

  7. Drag the Location slider to the left until it is under the St parameter. Then, drag the Falloff slider to the left to roughly the same position.

    This isolates the cross section curve at the top of the neck muscle that is slightly curved inwards.

  8. Drag the Sculpt slider to the right until the inward curvature disappears.
  9. Scrub the animation to frame 17, which represents the neck muscle’s stretch state as it is being pulled to its limit.

    NoteBefore you sculpt your muscle in a desired state, make sure you scrub the timeline to a frame that best represent your muscle in that state. Otherwise, you may not see the results of your deformations on your muscle surface.
  10. Drag the Location slider to the middle.
  11. Drag the Falloff slider to the right. This sets the sculpting range at its maximum, which means the entire muscle length is affected.

  12. Select the Z axis and St parameters.
  13. Drag the Sculpt slider to the left until the entire muscle is thinner.

  14. Scrub the Time Slider again to view your sculpting changes.

Beyond the Lesson

In this lesson you learned how to sculpt a muscle in different pose states. A completed file for this lesson, Sabertooth_Sculpt_Muscle_End.mb. Now you are ready to shape your muscle using the grow controls.