How Do You Swim

How Do You Swim puts its character underwater for most of its runtime, which means long, floating poses and plenty of squash and stretch. The rig was built to let the animators push the body past realistic limits without breaking deformation.

Stretchy IK limbs with volume preservation, a ribbon spine and neck, and soft IK on the arms and legs give the animators room to exaggerate. Skinning and corrective shapes were tested at the most extreme poses from the animatic before the rig shipped.

The rig was profiled during production after it started to slow down in heavy scenes; the fix landed without delaying animation.