What tools to use for such an assignment. (Realistically bone and ligament movement from Maya to Unity).

[kimmortennissen]

Hi all, would it be possible to make something kinda like this in Maya, and then send it to Unity, where it keeps all the functions? 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgcMZ-jpkGT/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgweqXfLjwx/

Forget all about the textures, they are not gonna be there:
And the maximum triangle-count will be around 60.000. With some wriggle room to add a few more if necessary.

The whole Idea, is to make as much of this in Maya.
Model the bones - Model the ligaments - Rig it and then skin it.

When each part moves, nothing can clip, there needs to be some kind of colliders so the bones, ligaments on ligaments etc, do not move/go into/through eachother. 
Said more simple, it shall move realistically. 

What is the best way to do this?
Use some kind of cloth tool? 
Rig it with bones that are connected in some way, and then paint the skin weights so things funktion as I want it to?
Or! Use some kind of deforemers (I am not really familar with deformers, or what they really do, so this part is just a guess).

And when all this is done, how am I suposed to import the model into Unity, and then be able to move the bones, and have the ligaments move realistically.
What export settings will I need to use, to make sure it all moves over to Unity?

Kind regards,
Kim

[mcw0 · Accepted solution]

I had to rig up all the muscles including tendons (no ligaments) for Sport Science and Fight Science.  It all worked with tendons and muscles sliding over and around bones.  But not to this degree of scrutiny.  I used a variety of techniques and deformers.  But since you want to export to Unity, I'm assuming (I have no experience in exporting to Unity) that you are limited to only joint deformations.  So with that restriction, I would look into Dem Bones.  It's an open source tool that bakes down mesh deformations (of any kind) into driven bones.

PS.  Just reread your post mentioning that you are unfamiliar with deformers.  I would suggest rigging with joints and using blendshapes to fix any penetration issues.  You can have in-between shapes to fine tune your results.  This is the most direct and easily managed approach...in my opinion.