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Animation Bootcamp: An Indie Approach to Procedural Animation

Name: Animation Bootcamp: An Indie Approach to Procedural Animation
Description: 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.

GDC Festival of Gaming Talks intermediate

Open on YouTube First HN thread

4 HN users recommended this talk in 3 different months between 2021 and 2026.

2007–2026

4 recommendations 5 citations HackerTube score 3

HN points to it as a concrete case of procedural animation that keeps characters responsive, often in threads about Overgrowth and game feel.

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.

Pull quote: “Here's a video I've enjoyed of David Rosen giving a presentation at Game Developers Conference 2014” (HN, 2022)

Also tagged: procedural animation, inverse kinematics, indie games, overgrowth, game feel

What Hacker News said

9 labeled comments from the HN archive; up to 20 are kept per video, favoring different commenters. Each one links back to the original thread.

Recommends dognotdog December 2021 under The Matrix Is Unreal

Talk by the Overgrowth developer on natural, responsive character control.

Read the full comment

> [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 that just constantly break the immersion through unnatural, jarring behaviors and frustrating limitations.

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Recommends neandrake April 2022 under Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement

David Rosen's GDC 2014 presentation on procedural animation in Overgrowth.

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]

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Recommends KronisLV April 2022 under Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement

Procedural animation built from just a few keyframes.

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]

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Recommends turtledragonfly January 2024 under PIDs: Creating Stable Control in Games

Shows physics driving animation speed via a surveyor wheel approach.

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.

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Citations, criticism and jokes

Cites it omgketchup December 2021 under The Matrix Is Unreal

Procedural animation approach avoiding bespoke animations in games.

[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.

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Cites it arran-nz April 2022 under Overgrowth Game Engine Open Sourced

GDC talk explaining Overgrowth's procedural animation system.

Happy to see this! Looking forward to dive into the procedural animation system David talked about at GDC. [0] [0]: [this video]

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Cites it darzu November 2023 under Northlight makes Alan Wake 2 shine

Wolfire's philosophy that animation must not hurt player control.

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]

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Cites it dymk November 2023 under Northlight makes Alan Wake 2 shine

Overgrowth developer's GDC 2014 talk on procedural animation and IK.

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]

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Cites it rootlocus May 2026 under The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters

Principle of doing no harm to gameplay with animation.

While I agree it's incredibly jarring in some games, I'm always thinking back at a presentation by David Rosen on procedural animation: "First, do no harm to the gameplay". He's talking about animations in particular, but I feel that should be a core pillar for any game designer. Many things are unnatural in games: you don't instantly recover from a beating by eating one apple in real life, but we're ok with it in games because it makes the gameplay fun. [this video]

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