Adding muscles to arms and legs

Anyone ever had to add muscles to arms or legs? Maybe not too much movement but like someone standing there and flexing as if someone would take a pic? Would this be a job for Distort node? Or does anyone else have any other tricks? :pray:

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We had this come up recently.

We went with a head replacement :scream:

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A lot probably depends on how far you need to push it. Are you starting with a person who has visibly defined muscles already and is the end goal simply a strong looking person or more of a body-builder look?

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I’d give pixel spread a go, once you have tracks on the areas, could track mattes to drive where the bulges go. Would likely be able to iterate quickly, vary how much you want them to bulge, animate, etc…

Esp. if it’s just a standing there & flexing gag & not a hulk transformation :slight_smile:

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Tracking some deform meshes onto the area or UV tracking / animation on an extended bicubic if you really need to get granular…

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We added a muscular arm to Jeff Goldblum and did it with a stand-in arm from a bodybuilder. Worked well. If what you have to work with has already been shot, then I’d consider a bit of stock footage (even a still) and tracking that over existing arm. It’ll cover up what’s there, so you won’t need to remove anything.

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I would try Deform in Action. For example put your deform grid around the bicep, with a gmask tracer track axis. Then select the grid points in the bicep area. Use Magnet—>Scale and gesturally scale it up. It works quite well, unless you need to do a comp replacement with another arm.

In addition to the deform scaling, shading will be your friend. Use multiply and/or CC to enhance the shading that’s already there in the source. Then you’ll prob need to add some more shading to taste. Highlights off the bulges too.

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There is a thread within the last 6 months about Deform, and what to watch out for. In short - always make sure Outside is not toggled. And set your lattices numbers before you start moving stuff.

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Deform is now my first go to before Extended Bicubics, and I haven’t tried Distort in very long time.

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You’d really want to get the lighting right for it to work well. Or else it could look bad. Stating the obvious here I know.

If it has already been shot, you could possibly find a cheap Turbosquid CG arm that you position and animate in flame. Or send it to a good CG generalist who can get you back something quickly/cheaply. I’m not one to go for CG usually but if it has been shot already.

Otherwise, I’d be getting a plate of a muscular dude and a plate of the non muscular dude and combining them. I’ve had to add a 6 pack to a guy in a TVC ages ago and I managed to get both plates shot and it worked a treat.

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