Ziva Dynamics Releases has launched Zivavfx 1.4, a major update to its character creation technology that adds five new tools for production artists. Thanks to insights from the community and key customers like Sony Pictures Imageworks and Scanline VFX, Ziva VFX now helps creators apply real-world physics to even more parts of the character creation process, including muscle growth, tissue tension and natural elements like heavy winds and water pressure.

Already in use at Double Negative and Rising Sun Pictures, Ziva’s technology fundamentally changes the character creation process by combining the effects of real-world physics with the rapid creation of soft-tissue materials like muscles, fat and skin. By mirroring the fundamental properties of nature, users can produce CG characters that move, flex and jiggle just as they would in real life, removing difficult steps from the rigging process.

“Ziva’s character tools have really worked out for us,” said John Hughes, founder of Rhythm & Hues and Tau Films. “The updates speed up simulations and give artists even more control and creative flexibility. Our creature pipeline is really hitting its stride.”

Ziva Dynamics Releases With External Forces, users are able to accurately simulate how natural elements like wind and water interact with their characters. Making a character’s tissue flap or wrinkle in the wind, ripple and wave underwater, or even repel towards or away from a magnetic field can all be done quickly, in a physically accurate way.

New Pressure and Surface Tension properties can be used to “fit” fat tissues around muscles, augmenting the standard Ziva VFX anatomy tools. These settings allow users to remove fascia from a Ziva simulation while still achieving the detailed wrinkling and sliding effects that make humans and creatures look real.

When it’s time to adjust muscles, Muscle Growth can rapidly increase the overall muscle definition of a character or body part without having to remodel the geometry. A Rest Scale for Tissue feature has also been added, letting users grow or shrink a tissue object equally in all directions. Not only do these tools improve collaboration between modelers and riggers, but they also increase creative control for independent artists.