This tool applies a deformer to selected skin geometry so that muscles will bulge out the skin where ever they push against it.

1. Click the Muscle Displace tool on the Muscles shelf tab.

2. Select the skin object you would like to have affected by your muscles and press Enter. The nodes needed to merge your muscles and apply the deformation will be appended to the displayed node in this skin object.

3. Select the muscle you want to use as displacement tools and press Enter. These objects can be any number or combination of rigged muscles or franken muscles.

The Muscle Displace tool will append a Muscle Deform SOP to the displayed node inside your selected skin object. The Muscle Deform SOP requires three inputs in order to function properly: skin geometry to deform, muscle geometry to deform the skin with, one or more points that will act as the muscle centers. These centers are used to determine the direction of displacement.

The muscle centers are typically distributed along a curve running through the center of a muscle. The center points used by a single muscle are weighted by their proximity to the closest part of any muscle they are associated with. Overlapping weight influence is controlled by parameters on the Muscle Deform SOP. Association between muscles and muscle centers is by a muscle_id attribute. If muscles and centers share a common value for the muscle_id attribute, then the Muscle Deform SOP will combine their influence when determining how far and in which direction the skin displacement should occur.

See the Muscle Deform SOP for more information.