RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY
Animation
Animation 1 - The Power of IK Spines
Just some more thrusting practice. Normally I stick to FK spines for this kind of motion, but I’ve started noticing how much they limit you when you want to make quick variations or adjustments.
So with this animation, I decided to spend some time getting more comfortable using IK spines instead. The more I test it, the more it feels like the better option for pretty much any scenario involving this type of content.
With an FK spine, you end up burning a lot of time just countering the spine and hip rotations. IK makes it way easier to stay flexible and iterate faster without fighting the rig the whole time.
Animation 2 - Noise Modifiers
Another cool thing I learned recently is how powerful noise modifiers can be in your animation curves. Humans aren’t robots — we don’t just move cleanly from point A to point B, or even from A to B to C in a perfectly smooth arc.
There’s always a bit of subtle irregularity in real motion. Even when something looks smooth, there’s usually a tiny amount of jaggedness or variation underneath it.
I haven’t fully tested this out yet, but I really think that implementing noise modifiers the right way could completely level up an animation.
Physics
Physics 1 - Cages Over Shapekeys
I also experimented with using physics for the impact instead of shape keys, and honestly… I think this is probably how I’ll handle all fat/soft-body interactions from now on. It just makes more sense. Cloth physics are literally designed for this kind of interaction, so leaning into that workflow feels way more natural.
One thing I did notice, though, is that the faster the animation gets, the weirder the physics start to behave. I’m not sure if that’s a hard rule or just something in my setup, but it’s definitely something I’m going to keep in mind for future projects.
Physics 2 - Simulating Clothes Correctly
As for Zarya’s sweater/jacket, this was actually my first time setting up clothing physics. Surprisingly, it was way more straightforward than I expected. At the core, it’s just a normal cloth sim setup — but the big thing I learned is that the mesh you’re simulating should be flat and not have thickness.
If your clothing mesh has depth, Blender has to simulate double the vertices, which makes everything slower. And when you’re rebaking over and over, that extra calculation time adds up fast. If I ever run into a situation where I need to simulate a solid mesh, I’ll probably just create a flat simulation proxy and then use mesh deform to drive the original mesh. That way I can avoid the double vertex cost while keeping the final result intact.
Lighting
Lighting 1 - In The Closet
Lighting was pretty straightforward as well. I really wanted to push the whole “in the closet” vibe, so I played around with adding some color to the render to really sell that mood.
I’m still a long way from being great at lighting, but honestly, this one didn’t turn out too bad. It felt like a solid step in the right direction.
by the way, i rendered this in eevee for anyone wondering