The Triceratops Project - Dinosaur Muscle Simulation

==|| The Triceratops - Project Description ||==

The Triceratops Project is a collaboration piece between the Sr. Creature TD Thiago Paulino and the brilliant Sr. Creature Artist Antoine Verney-Carron.

==|| Objective ||==

Create a fully simulated Triceratops running, using Ziva Dynamics and rending in Unreal Engine.

==|| Techniques - Process ||==

[ Stage 1. Rigging ]

After getting the model, I used mGear as the Rigging Framework and ngSkinnTools for weight painting.

[ Stage2. Animation ]

The Trot Animation Cycle was created in Autodesk Maya, using references from Hypopotamus and Rhinoceros. It was not meant to be correct, but to look good and dynamic. According to the anatomical constraints, the Triceratops would not be able to trop.

[ Stage 3. Ziva Dynamics Setup ]

The Ziva Dynamics muscle setup was transferred from the Ziva Asset - Zeke the Lion. To perform the transfer I had to use Wrap3D to re-shape the Base Mesh.

The simulation and caching were then performed in the following stages: 1. Bones, 2. Muscles, 3. Fat, 4. Skin

[ Stage 4. Unreal Engine ]

After generating the Alembic(.ABC) cache files for each stage, they were then ported into Unreal Engine. The shaders were rebuilt using the maps provided by Antoine.

Rendering involved the following steps: 1. Shading - 2. Lighting - 3. Scene Elements Setup - 4. Camera Animation - 5. Scene Animation - 6. Sequences Setup - 7. Rendering

Each Mesh (Render Mesh, Muscles, Grey Mesh) was rendered separately and combined with video editing.

[ Stage 5. Editing/Sound Design ]

With all renders finilized, the footage was edited in Premiere Pro, and sound design was created using assets from Epidemic Sound.

==|| Credits ||==

[ Thiago Paulino ] :

- Rigging (Maya)
- Trot Cycle Animation (Maya)
- Ziva Setup & Simumalation
- Unreal Engine Lookdev
- Unreal Engine Lighting
- Unreal Engine Render

[ Antoine Verney-Carron ] :

- Concept Design
- Modeling
- Texturing

==|| Links ||==

[ Thiago Paulino ] :

- [YouTube] Project Vídeo:
- https://youtu.be/YLyAXj6sF_A

- [YouTube] Channel:
- www.youtube.com/@tpaulino

- [ArtStation] Portfolio:
- https://www.artstation.com/tpaulino

- [ArtStation] Triceratops Project:
- Coming soon...

- [Instagram]:
- instagram.com/tpaulino.art