Animation Bootcamp: An Indie Approach to Procedural Animation
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as a concrete case of procedural animation that keeps characters responsive, often in threads about Overgrowth and game feel.
What it is
David Rosen of Wolfire Games explains how simple procedural techniques can produce fluid, interactive character animation from very few keyframes. Examples come from Overgrowth, Receiver and Black Shades, from his 2014 GDC session.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2021 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends dognotdog · 2021-12 · on “The Matrix Is Unreal”
> [this video] David Rosen pulled off quite a few little masterpieces -- his gamedev competition entries always had fantastically unique aspects. I cannot believe "Black Shades" was almost 20 years ago! (I have no affiliation, but I am glad to see [LINK] is still alive and kicking!) Lugaru and later Overgrowth have been the outcomes of what can only be called a decades long obsession with getting the player controls just right, allowing very natural and responsive control and movement, through creating emergent behaviors from first principles, resulting in a rich and natural interaction with the environment (and other characters, see the fighting mojo), in contrast to the many, many AAA titles th
Recommends neandrake · 2022-04 · on “Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement”
Here's a video I've enjoyed of David Rosen giving a presentation at Game Developers Conference 2014 going over procedural animation used in Overgrowth. [this video]
Recommends KronisLV · 2022-04 · on “Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement”
Not only that, but some of their approaches were immensely cool, they used procedural animations from just a few keyframes, have a look at this video that someone else linked a while back "Animation Bootcamp: An Indie Approach to Procedural Animation": [this video]
Recommends turtledragonfly · 2024-01 · on “PIDs: Creating Stable Control in Games”
Not the person you asked, but here's a video you might like: [this video] In that example, they do the character's physics first (just a ball), then match the animation to it. The animation speed is controlled by a "surveyor wheel" approach — go to to 336s in the video for that part. So, the animation speed is derived from the physics, rather than the physics speed being derived from the animation. I wouldn't call that "IK" exactly, which would be more for things like matching the foot to individual stair steps as the character walks up them, or such. But I suppose in a broader sense it is, since you're deciding on a physical goal a-priori, then forcing the animation to match that goal.
Cites omgketchup · 2021-12 · on “The Matrix Is Unreal”
[this video] It's definitely possible to "not bash into walls" You don't always need to have bespoke animations- sometimes keyframes and realistic constraints can get you there. I think Unity is working on a framework for natural human animation.
Cites arran-nz · 2022-04 · on “Overgrowth Game Engine Open Sourced”
Happy to see this! Looking forward to dive into the procedural animation system David talked about at GDC. [0] [0]: [this video]
Cites darzu · 2023-11 · on “Northlight makes Alan Wake 2 shine”
I’ve always preferred the Wolfire approach[0]: animation should “do no harm” to player control, it’s only there to add flavor, never at the cost of game responsivity [0] [this video]
Cites dymk · 2023-11 · on “Northlight makes Alan Wake 2 shine”
The keywords you're looking for are "procedural animation" and "inverse kinematics" - Overgrowth was doing this in 2009. The developer did a presentation at GDC 2014 on it: [this video]