Muscle Object

An important addition in MOCCA 3 is the integration of a complete muscle system, consisting of the muscle object and the muscle deformer.

In order for a muscle object to be able to deform a mesh, a muscle deformer must be added to the mesh and linked to the muscle object.

In general, you can place the muscle object itself anywhere you want within the 3D coordinate system and within the scene hierarchy. In most cases, the actual muscle that results is placed between two objects automatically. In the case of a character, this will usually be between two joint objects.

Before the introduction of muscles, there were already ways to simulate muscles in CINEMA 4D, for example, by using morph targets or bone objects. However, the muscle object offers a number of advantages over these alternatives:

You only have to assign one muscle deformer to the mesh, no matter how many muscle objects you're using. This means the effect is calculated very quickly.
Just like a real muscle, the muscle object can slide around under the skin. This effect is difficult to achieve using other methods.
Muscle objects are very flexible in terms of their shape and position in the mesh. Special shapes are easy to achieve.
You can easily combine multiple muscle objects, such as to give the impression of a large muscle with several strands at the ends.
Muscle objects have proper geometry and can be rendered and textured like normal objects. They can even be converted to polygon objects.