Development and Application of a Physically Correct Muscular System Model for a 3d Character

This paper describes a system for creating realistic 3D characters. Firstly, two approaches to the simulation of elastic bodies are considered: Mass-Spring Model and Finite Element Method. It is concluded that the finite element method is preferable. To implement a system based on the finite element method, the Vega FEM library is selected. The Saint-Venant Kirchhoff material model (StVK) and the implicit backward Euler integrator, that are contained in Vega FEM library, were used in our system. Then we describe the creation of the collisions and attachments that are combined with Vega FEM in our system. We developed an algorithm of creating an animated 3D character, using our system. First step of algorithm is to attach each muscle to the skeleton and then configure their individual setting to simulate realistic muscle movement. The next step is the creation of the fat layer. We begin with simulating inner layer by using nCloth we shrink the skin model to the muscles and bones. For the outer layer we use the skin model. By combining these layers together, we create and object that will fill the space between muscles and skin. Then we simulate the created fat using the muscles simulated on the first step. The final step of our algorithm is the simulation of skin layer to create wrinkles on the skin. We achieve this effect by creating an nCloth object from the skin model and then attaching it to the fat layer using spring-like attachments. Then we compare our system to most popular open system for creating 3D characters (Houdini Character Muscles and Maya Muscles) based on realistic appearance of created characters and computational time. The conclusion is made about the effectiveness of the developed system, its’ novelty and tasks set for the future.