Hey Guys! ;)
Today I would like to show you a really quick tip regarding how to smooth your deformation using the cMuscle Skin Deformer. Lot of you maybe already know that trick, but If you are a beginner in the rigging world I guess it can be helpful for the future ;)
Let's start with a simple scenario. Here we have a simple plane with Skinned Joints. On the right we have a really sharp skinWeight and on the left we have a sharp and no accurate skinWeight.
Before applying the cMuscle Skin Deformer, keep in mind that your model needs to be in default pose.
Then, selecting your deformable geo, go to Muscle > Skin Setup > Apply Muscle System Skin Deformer. (Like in the picture bellow)
Maya will take couple of seconds to evaluate it and if you are applying the deformer on top of a skinCluster, you may get a dialog box like this one, Please click "NO"
Maya will apply a cMuscleSystem deformer on your geo. Select this deformer and go to the Attribute Editor, find RELAX and SMOOTH.
Let's start with the relax, Turn it ON and set a more high iterations value, like 30. I always prefer use the Relax instead of the Smooth just because, for its behaviour, the relax will always try to keep more details than the other.
Have fun and play with this settings.
As you can see from the picture below we have a before/after using the cMuscle Skin Deformer.
That was a really quick overview, but keep in mind that you can smooth you mesh from whatever deformer you desire, like Lattice, Cluster and also Alembic Cache. And of course you can paint your cMuscleSystem deformer just to activate it in areas of your interest.
Thanks again for your time!
ROCK ON!