DMesh Overview - Section I

This overview provides a brief introduction to some of the capabilities and basic user interface features of DMesh. It contains a number of screen captures of models being built, along with the final renderings of the model.

Creating a Male Super Hero Leg
(this is a rendering of the model covered in this section)

(download the above DMesh model)

We begin by creating the basic shape of the object. Shown here is a basic starting shape for a leg. The general shape of the Foot and Ankle can be seen at the bottom, the expanded Calf and smaller Knee area, and the larger Thigh and Hip areas.
Generally, the basic shape need not be very detailed, (as is apparent here,) since it's only purpose is to provide a surface to attach additional items or muscles to. Typically you will also define the Anatomy segments at the same time, which in this case would be the Foot, Calf, Thigh and Hip.

To this basic shape, we begin adding the musculature system.
The following screen captures show the completed muscle positions and overall layout as displayed by the internal OpenGL preview window. Different colors have been used to better illustrate the individual muscles. Red and Green show the main muscles, while blue is used for ligaments and the Shin and Ankle bones.

Inside
Front
Outside
Back

In addition to the OpenGL preview, there are a number of other editing windows used for creating, moving and otherwise modifying individual items. The two main ones are the Surface Map View, (which allows you to create, delete, resize and otherwise reposition muscles,) and the MDL View, (which handles editing of the shape of individual muscles.)

UV Grid View
Muscle are created and attached in the surface map coordinate space of the object. Typically, the models uv texture layout is use as the surface map. As such, they are simply drawn on a flat uv map.
This screen capture shows the major muscle definitions for the above leg, with the Sartorius muscle of the upper Thigh selected. It can then be repositioned or resized using the standard windows rectangle dragging interface.

MDL View
For additional adjustments, the curves defining each muscle are refined by modifying their control points.
This screen capture shows the main curves used to define the same Sartorius muscle. The control points are modified by dragging with the mouse, using the various keyboard commands, or by setting them manually. Additional options are available through dialog boxes and the context menus.

Finally, we export the model and render it.
(note that for illustration purposes, these examples have quite pronounced musculature. To produce more realistic results you would likely reduce this effect. This is a fairly simple task of reducing the displacement values for the appropriate items, or by changing the scaling factors for specific layers as a whole.)

First, just the muscle layers were exported, and a human muscle texture applied to the individual mesh objects.

This version uses the same approach, while applying a more alienish texture for the individual muscles.

Finally, the actual skin layer is exported and a more realistic skin texture is applied to the model.

Creating a Male Super Hero Leg (this is a rendering of the model covered in this section) (download the above DMesh model)
We begin by creating the basic shape of the object. Shown here is a basic starting shape for a leg. The general shape of the Foot and Ankle can be seen at the bottom, the expanded Calf and smaller Knee area, and the larger Thigh and Hip areas. Generally, the basic shape need not be very detailed, (as is apparent here,) since it's only purpose is to provide a surface to attach additional items or muscles to. Typically you will also define the Anatomy segments at the same time, which in this case would be the Foot, Calf, Thigh and Hip.
To this basic shape, we begin adding the musculature system. The following screen captures show the completed muscle positions and overall layout as displayed by the internal OpenGL preview window. Different colors have been used to better illustrate the individual muscles. Red and Green show the main muscles, while blue is used for ligaments and the Shin and Ankle bones.
Inside	Front	Outside	Back
In addition to the OpenGL preview, there are a number of other editing windows used for creating, moving and otherwise modifying individual items. The two main ones are the Surface Map View, (which allows you to create, delete, resize and otherwise reposition muscles,) and the MDL View, (which handles editing of the shape of individual muscles.)
UV Grid View		Muscle are created and attached in the surface map coordinate space of the object. Typically, the models uv texture layout is use as the surface map. As such, they are simply drawn on a flat uv map. This screen capture shows the major muscle definitions for the above leg, with the Sartorius muscle of the upper Thigh selected. It can then be repositioned or resized using the standard windows rectangle dragging interface.
MDL View		For additional adjustments, the curves defining each muscle are refined by modifying their control points. This screen capture shows the main curves used to define the same Sartorius muscle. The control points are modified by dragging with the mouse, using the various keyboard commands, or by setting them manually. Additional options are available through dialog boxes and the context menus.
Finally, we export the model and render it. (note that for illustration purposes, these examples have quite pronounced musculature. To produce more realistic results you would likely reduce this effect. This is a fairly simple task of reducing the displacement values for the appropriate items, or by changing the scaling factors for specific layers as a whole.)
First, just the muscle layers were exported, and a human muscle texture applied to the individual mesh objects.
This version uses the same approach, while applying a more alienish texture for the individual muscles.
Finally, the actual skin layer is exported and a more realistic skin texture is applied to the model.