PhysGrid

Producing realistic-looking soft tissue, such as muscle and fat, adds richness towards making more believable characters. Consequently, a research project was formed to achieve highly efficient and controllable simulations for character deformation without requiring anatomical models.

Through tight collaboration between our production and technology teams, this research evolved into PhysGrid, a volumetric solid solver for simulating soft tissue. PhysGrid allows artists to define materials using more traditional weighting techniques than typical simulation methods. Using these techniques, artists quickly simulated deformations to meet the aesthetic vision for the huge variety of characters seen in Zootopia.