Blender Modeling / Sculpting: Dealing with folds on inflated and obese models.

[captainstupids]

Curious if anyone has advice for sculpting this funky topology.

I’m blowing up a character REALLY big and I end up with this kind of U-shape or pinch in some parts of the mesh, like between the chest and the arms, near the back of the knees, or between the back and the armpits when they would be swallowed up by the body.

I would have thought the smooth tool would bring everything closer but it doesn’t quite seem to behave how I want. It either makes things noodly and rod-like when used on the arms/knees OR it moves everything towards the mean. I’ve tried the “fill” operation which I’d have though would do a good job of filling them in or the inflate tool which I’d have thought would round out the space enough for me to flatten it, but I haven’t found a tool that’s really good for it and have to just manually move verts into place.

Ideally, I’d be able to sort of smooth and inflate these, like the spherization process, but I can’t seem to find an appropriate brush for that.

[Skirret_Resetar]

Heh, deja vu, others have asked about similar:

Making Fat Models the Easy Way

[Untitled] Do you want to make a model nice and fat, but don’t want to sit around doing endless sculpting and/or weight painting due to being impatient like I am? Well, then do I have the trick for you. (Update as of October 20th, 2021: Added two new things; another potential solution to auto-weighting failure, and a better method for limb fattening.) Bit of a story to preface this, feel free to skip it if you’re in a hurry or just not interested: I play a lot of VRChat for the experiences…

Rawethewolfs tips to create a soft body character in Blender

For context this is a brief explanation on how I did a soft body character animation. This explanation is from the weight gaming discord server. Just in case, some might rate it for the more mature audience. Link to example: https://twitter.com/RaweWolf/status/1635042437726113793?s=20 I will try to make it short for the chat. I have a long version and a rewritten version of that one, that I guess is clearer. The long version also explains more in depth of why everything is done in the way I di…

Wolke Curvy Cow Model Asset

Wanted to promote the great work of Wolkehond. They made a solid fat model base that you can buy on Gumroad. They’ve answered a number of my questions this past year pertaining to blender and modeling fat characters. Seeing a professional 3d model of a BBW character is nice, and it may inform future changes to my own fat character’s rig. Wolke makes models that can be handled in VR chat and Unity, they also create animations so you can count on it being rigged and weight painted well. Shape ke…

These should help, if not I’ll still keep an eye out.
Also, one of the guys who’ve asked probably has something in their example:

Better jiggle physics cages? (Blender)

It is hard to say without seeing the size of the character, what sort of settings you are using for the proxy mesh or what kinda animation you are trying to do. There are a few things you could try. First thing I would look at is the pin group for the proxy mesh. You could add some weight painting to help support the arms so they don’t sag. Try a low strength brush and add weight to the pin group to the parts that don’t need to jiggle as much. Parts near the wrist, elbow and shoulder which tend…

[captainstupids]

I’ve commented in some of those threads already and decided that since this question was so specific it made sense to make a new thread. Appreciate the reply nonetheless.

Wolke Curvy Cow Model Asset appears to be just an asset and doesn’t really deal with the “how”. The linked videos are also demos and less of a matter of informing.

The ‘Sculpting’ section of “Making Fat Models the Easy Way” is pretty relevant. It’s nothing ‘new’ and doesn’t quite answer the question, but it’s good info.

I think what I should probably do is take this question to the Blender Artists forum. That might be a good place for it.

[Skirret_Resetar]

The thread actually has an example on what the skeleton looks like; it’s the reason I myself put a bookmark on it.
I figured the skeleton picture would be of some use.

[captainstupids]

I have no issues with the skeleton. I like the rig I’m using. My issue is specifically with the behavior of a sculpting tool that doesn’t seem like it’s doing what it should be doing.

[Skirret_Resetar]

Oooohh…
Hmmm… maybe it’s like that video on cloth physics. The issues were typically simple things like an extra mesh that wasn’t deleted or certain layers that were in incorrect positions.
It could be a settings issue - in my experience with some art programs, certain tools would have settings attached to them that made things “fun”.
Or it could be something it’s interacting with tool wise.
Admittedly I’m really new to Blender, but I’m commenting because I sometimes have interesting luck in finding solutions.