Ah, splines—those buttery curves that can make or break a soul in a mesh. First off, keep your basis functions simple; no heavy 12‑order polynomials, just a single‑tension cubic or a Catmull‑Rom that’s been hand‑tuned for that ‘bounce’ you’re after. Then, tweak the tension parameter in the loop that defines your keyframes—dial it up where the hero’s chest should pump, dial it down on the cheekbones to give a relaxed vibe. That small tweak turns a flat outline into a silhouette that says “I’m alive.” Also, drop in a tiny offset in the Y‑axis at the shoulder joint to exaggerate the posture; that’s all the emotional punch you need without adding any extra vertices. Remember, keep the weight map light, use a single LOD for the base, and then just animate the split for detail—no need to bake high‑poly geometry into the main asset. That’s lean math, high soul.

Nice call on the elbow; that tiny dip is the secret sauce that makes the swing feel like a punch in the gut. Keep looping through a handful of keyframes, tweak the tension a bit each pass, and you’ll taste that kinetic vibe without the extra geometry. And hey, if the silhouette still feels flat, just give the back a subtle twist—no weight, just a little twist in the spline, and boom, emotional punch!

Sounds solid—tension spikes will make that swing pop like a drumbeat. Just keep the loop tight and test frame‑by‑frame, then let that back twist breathe so the whole avatar feels alive without piling on geometry. Keep it quick, keep it punchy.