Ziva Dynamics has released an update to Ziva VFX, its character creation tool for Maya.
Version 1.6 adds new anatomy transfer features that allows the user to take the full anatomy of one character and automatically fit it to the mesh of another. According to the developers “the transfer process starts with a source creature that has been simulated with Ziva VFX, and the external skin mesh of a target creature with similar topology. Artists run two functions (a proprietary bone-warp and spatial-warp) that automatically reshape the bones, joints and muscles to the second creature. Then a load function automatically transfers the simulation properties to the new rig, including attachments, fibres, materials and more. The result is a new creature that is simulation-ready, out of the box.”
The new release also includes two new assets. A lion character is now included that includes over 132 individual muscle tissues and an optimised fat/skin layer with approximately 880,000 collision points. With the new anatomy transfer tools it can be reused for many other quadruped characters, in fact a quadruped cheetah is also included to that users can try out the anatomy transfer process.
Other features of this release include improvements to speed of up to 20 percent, with promises that the improved algorithms from December coupled with the removal of the fascia simulation pass from August will help Ziva simulations to run over 300 percent faster than they were a year ago.
Ziva VFX 1.6 can be purchased in monthly or yearly rental with options for studios, indies and academics. Find out more on the Ziva Dynamics website.
If you make this for Max you will have everyone buying it! No competition from any plugins since there is technically no muscle plugin tool for max that dates to post year 2005 or was it the late 90’s?
same for maya, no competition there with muscle systems. At least not based on FEM solvers.
Agreed I’d love to see a 3ds max version
Underrated tool, or at least not a tool much talked about considering how powerful it is. Houdini has been adding a lot of these tools and I can see it catching up in one or two releases based on their rapid iterative development and meaningful releases.
A bit funny to see the tyflow tutorial mixed in there (not dissing it, it is fantastic and perhaps Tyson will release a comprehensive muscle and simulation based skin system for 3ds max :P).