Realistic Muscle Deformation Using RBF Rig

Igor Silva, a Character Technical Artist at Blizzard Entertainment, shared a WIP project featuring a character created by Gustavo Medeiros, demonstrating an RBF muscle setup rendered in Unreal Engine 5.

This rig uses no blendshapes: the torso and arms are powered by around 15 bones per side, creating impressive muscle and skin movement. Fantastic work, and if you'd like to see the Maya viewport version of the rig, you can check it out below:

We recently featured Fuyumidori's great showcase of chest muscle movement for a VRChat avatar. You can also download the animation file and test it with your own character.

This is Yang Xiao's prototype of a muscle rig workflow with ribbon:

If you're a rigging artist working in Maya, you might want to try Thomas Bittner's Kangaroo Builder and Zhenggang Deng's free tools:

Also, check out Tyler Wilson's TensionFX and AdonisFX, which is often considered an alternative to Ziva: