Whoah, haven't seen this muscle deformations before (mocapped flexed muscles?)

MagicSugar

EDIT: 2nd video, behind-the-scenes hype video

Start 2:20 for Bruce loosening up. Back muscle definition in particular. Arms states, tense to relax.  

https://youtu.be/GAYHrhf4KUc?t=140

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIzkc5ouE2E

ZacD

Looks like a pretty straight forward tensed normal map blending with a relaxed normal map. Metal Gear Solid did it with face wrinkles on the PS3. I think the vertex colors are animated along with the animation, but you can also generate a tension map based off movements. game have also blended clothing wrinkles in similar ways. 

MagicSugar

EDIT: Updated first post with second video

I haven't paid attention to EA Sports games recently but apparently a publicly announced feature of EA's Ignite Engine.  Just saw a 2 yr old blurb mentioning it: 

"Thanks to the power of the Ignite engine, EA Sports UFC will feature an all-new full-body deformation system that displaces the fighter’s flesh in real time. Now your punches and kicks will actually show the power behind them through the impression it leaves on your opponent’s body.

Bodies of the fighters will also be effected by exertion through real-time vein popping, skin discoloration, muscle flex, as well as signs of fatigue setting in through the course of each round.

Dubbed as the most realistic fighting game yet, every single licensed athlete in the game has been created through full 3D head and body scans. This is going to bring a very authentic character likeness with new facial animations, expressions, emotions and more."

http://segmentnext.com/2014/05/01/ea-sports-ufc-fact-sheet-details-games-features/

PolyHertz

They're generally known as "Wrinkle maps". Been used in games since at least Uncharted1 back in 2007.

Eric Chadwick

Wow what an extensive amount of work though. Very impressive. Sets a new high bar I think.

MrHobo

Yeah at the end of the day they are using wrinkle maps but shit...
The number of blends they must be using to get that level of coverage and detail is pretty amazing. And considering that each fighter is a seprate set of blends thats a fuck ton of scanning and cleanup and sculpting.

claydough

Don't most EA sports fight games usually use their own proprietary complex muscle system that goes beyond maps? But systems for interaction of masses and jiggle deformers?
previous discussion of EA muscle systems: ( in which mop also state that most of their effects are blended normal maps? )
http://polycount.com/discussion/65874/muscle-simulation

each time an opponent is punched in the following example...
physics engine is used to drive the direction of the facial deformation "flapping" differently each time based on the direction of the generating punch: ( in addition to the direction of blood and sweat spray )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mURRnicdNDw
Description  a lil more in depth of muscle system complexity:
http://www.ea.com/fight-night/blog/fight-night-champion-art-blog

Each of the elements work with and compliment the physics system. These include but aren’t limited to:
- muscle flex/deformation
- muscle/fat jiggle
- body ripple (Both for the fighter being impacted and as a reaction back through the boxer throwing the punch)
- sweat generation (for sweat dripping down a boxers face/body and also the sweat you see fly when a boxer is hit)

pretty sexy results

Fight Night dev David Coleman from Electronic Arts ( canada ) siggraph talk on procedurally driven joint strategies:
http://webstaff.itn.liu.se/~perla/Siggraph2011/content/courses/mclaughlin.pdf

leilei

This isn't restricted to EA though.  GTAV and the non-EA sports games do this too

MagicSugar

Just saw rhis: LBrush and "pose space deformation"

But the maker took the Maya plug-in off market.  You can sculpt the deforms, i.e. regular non-EA artists could've gotten similar results if it was still for sale.

Also saw Binary Domain, Japanese game, but they probably used Face Robot to do their facial expressions (gamedevs over there love Softimage).



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwd-H-okk8Q