ZIVA VFX V1.5
A powerful tool for building complex muscle systems
I’ve had lots of fun working with Maya’s muscle tools in the past. I’ve spent endless hours in the muscle editor, adjusting the basic NURBS primitive, trying to get the shape I needed before painting influences, adjusting capsules and a whole host of other steps involved in building the system. I wouldn’t say it’s a pleasant task, but it gets the job done and gives the desired effect of muscles moving beneath the surface of the skin.
It seems that the way Autodesk has approached creating a system for simulating muscles is very long-winded. It almost feels like a tool for artists, created by programmers, and I mean that in the nicest possible way – it’s more technical than visual. The problem is, when you’ve paid the hefty price tag to own Maya in the first place, you don’t want to then pay more for a plugin, not unless it’s going to drastically speed up your workflow. This is where Ziva VFX steps in to hopefully alleviate some of the pain associated with dynamics systems in general, but does it work as advertised?
With any new tool there’s going to be a period of adjustment as you get used to new techniques and approaches. I’ve only had a short time to play with Ziva’s tools, but what I’ve found is that when it comes to building complex muscle systems, the process is more streamlined and makes much more sense. To begin, you can convert any polygon object into either a tissue, cloth or bone component, meaning you can create anatomically correct models and use them directly without having to build separate systems to drive them. I loved this approach, as it means that as an artist you have full creative freedom and aren’t limited by primitives.
Once defined you simply attach the muscle to the bone and you have a basic setup, ready to go. Of course there is a lot more to it as you then need to work on collisions, adjusting the muscle fibres and actual muscle growth, but the ease with which you can achieve this, along with the
extra level of control you get, is liberating.
This sounds like it can get complicated but trust me, everything you add is done in a more visual way. Yes, there are a whole host of attributes to work with and there’s no way around that, but they are for more advanced configurations and someone wanting a more basic setup may only end up needing to tweak a few.
To help with some of the workload Ziva Dynamics have adopted Young’s Modulus to define the properties of each material for you. This mechanical property is used to measure the flexibility of a certain material, so when you define a tissue component, for example, it will be automatically assigned the correct properties.
As you can tell I was impressed with the muscle system Ziva offered, but to focus just on that would do the tool a disservice. At its core it is a full dynamics plugin meaning you can create cloth simulations, fabric, jelly – you name it, it can do it and each system is approached with the same level of simplicity meaning you have great results quickly and easily. There are so many nice features built into this tool that I don’t have enough space to go over everything, so if you’re thinking of investing, I would suggest that you watch one of the many videos on the Ziva website to get yourself acquainted.
So, is Ziva for you? Initially I thought this decision would come down to whether or not you needed this plugin, i.e. if you could get the same results with Maya’s built-in tools, then why bother spending the money? After doing various tests I found that yes, you could indeed get ‘similar’ results with Maya, but it took much more time to achieve them. So from this point of view, Ziva would be worth the investment.
I then wondered if the decision would come down to studio size and budget. Ziva is a great tool, but if it’s not priced correctly a lot of people won’t be able to access it. For a studio licence, which is aimed at companies earning over $500K a year, you only need to pay $1,800 per annum, whereas smaller companies have the option of subscribing to the indie licence which is only $50 per month. So, it looks like Ziva Dynamics have thought of everything, giving everyone the opportunity to use their tools regardless of size and budget.
“When it comes to building complex muscle Systems With ZIVA, the process is more Streamlined And makes much more Sense” main: the muscles can be defined from actual geometry, meaning you can be more precise with your simulations left: material layers give even more flexibility when defining properties on the same mesh Below (left): Game studios are using Ziva to help with cut-scene assets Below (right): You can also download free and paid-for assets from the Ziva website for a head-start