How to deform a character mesh according to its grayscale texture map?

[asianastroboy]

Hi all,

I'm picking up Softimage after a hiatus of quite a few years so that makes me a n00b to this forum, but hopefully I'll get to contribute more as I pick it up again!

I was wondering if any of you, have any thoughts or ideas on how to solve a problem I'm stuck on:

Using a single, template character mesh I'm going to unwrap a grayscale texture map. 
The real challenge I'm trying to solve is how to deform areas of the character mesh, based on the strength of the grayscale texture map?

That is, if you paint the texture map's belly and thighs dark black, then the mesh will deform to look like a fat man and if you paint the texture map's forearms and chest dark, the mesh will look like a body builder.

Is there any exisiting tools to enable this with backwards enveloping or ICE? 
Or does anyone have any ideas on how to create this? 
The solution has to use the grayscale texture map as a basis for deformations. 

Any help would really help get me started as I've been stuck on the solution for a while.

Thanks a lot!

[david577]

Hello I am David from New Jersy and I am new to animataion and edits. I have created a brand new youtube channel and looking for some edits. Kindly help me how to edit them privately.

[susanrice1010]

Hey Xsi, if you didn't know, Autodesk Softimage is discontinued now, so a lot of people have moved on to maintained products that can better serve to wash your image withe grey scale needed to deform properly.