What's The Deal With Procedural Animation?

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:22 - What is Procedural Animation
01:45 - Inverse Kinematics
02:50 - Why use procedural animation?
04:30 - Gait Systems
07:15 - Retargeting
10:06 - SPARK

In this comprehensive video, I delve into the fascinating world of procedural animation in games. I explore various aspects of procedural animation, focusing on armature animations for animals and robots, and the context in which these animations are used.

Key Topics Covered:

What is Procedural Animation?:
We start by defining procedural animation and discussing its difference from traditional animation, using examples from iconic games.

Exploring Inverse Kinematics:
A deep dive into inverse kinematics, its role in animation, and how it differs from traditional animation in expressing a character's internal state.

Challenges and Solutions in Procedural Animation:
We address the complexities of procedural gait systems, the difficulties in capturing dynamic movement, and the limitations of traditional animation in this context.

Game Adaptations and Retargeting:
Insights into how games adapt animations for different characters and the challenges of retargeting animations across different character models.

Hybrid Animation Solutions:
I introduce SPARK, a tool for creating animations for full-body inverse kinematics systems, and discuss its features and advantages in game design.

Conclusion:
I conclude that procedural animation is not a binary choice but should be used alongside traditional animation to enhance flexibility and realism in game design. I encourage viewers to suggest additional resources in the comments.

[GeatMasta]

Soon we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming of gamedev shitposting!

[..]

Really liked this video. I somehow never thought of those annoying "follow the NPC" quests as how my dog has trouble keeping the same pace as me.

[miversen]

This is really interesting! The music is quite distracting though, I would highly consider a quieter more "background" song.

Great info and content though! A great look into various approaches to animations :)

[bourbonbobo]

Nice video. For me as a programmer and artist procedural andimation is ideal, especially through the use of spring damper systems and custom interpolation curves you can get some of the most playful animation possible. Though it has to be the right use case and character design approach as I think this video illustrates by taking a look at a variety of approaches from existing games.

I still have so much learning to do, but I'm committed to programmatic animation as a common design pillar in many games I want to make. Personally I think you can apply the same theories and techniques to, programming that traditional animation uses to achive more expressive motions. This field being more recent, still has some maturing to do. Like traditional animation it requires an understanding of physical dynamics and a dedication to improving the craft.

I think these approaches aren't so different, in terms of the things you need to consider to achieve good results, just the knowledge and skillset you need to execute them well.

[chameleonedm]

Bro I am stoked that youtube shoved this into my feed. Super super informative, even about random topics like dog walking! New sub for sure, I'll hold my sub 100 badge high when you blow up sir

[leighkite]

Thanks for creating - engine writer here, beginning the animation knowledge journey. :)

[silphv]

Some referenced videos:

Giving Personality to Procedural Animations using Math (t3ssel8r)

The Rain World Animation Process (GDC)

Generating Monsters : BEAST SOCKET Devlog 01 (RujiK the Comatose)

quadruped locomotion (MSC Art)

The Procedural Animation of Gibbon: Beyond the Trees (Wolfire Games)

Quadruped Procedural Orgnanic Animation (Good Enough Games)

Spore Creature Creator to Blender (Freedom Arts)

How to setup IK bones: Blender Beginner Tutorials (blendera)

Full Body IK: Procedural Dragon Animations (Unreal Engine)

[johnmaris]

Omg walking animation done really really accurately is a lot more complex than I realised. Good job in showcase us the nitty gritty of physic simulation.

[honaleri]

Amazing video. Exceptionally informative.

I think the field of procedural animation is young, underdeveloped, and far from optimized. Several techniques mentioned made me immediately feel this sense of "but why not add this?", as in there was some missing component to the method keeping it from being well executed. I'm not yet the programmer to fill in those gaps in any practical way, but theoretically, I see where improvements can be made to turn these systems into something more organic. I have a lot of hopes for procedural animation in my future game, so I'd like to learn even more about how its implemented and how I might adjust things in the future.

Regardless, if you post more content with this similar quality, I'm in to see it.

Thanks so much for sharing.

[angel_of_rust]

hell yeah the Spore mention. There's just a joy from seeing any creature made in that game being able to have at least somewhat decent movement. the fortnite dances mod is the best for it for that matter.

[El-Burrito]

Something interesting I saw recently related to targeting was a dev showcase by the Dragon's Dogma developers on how they can re-apply the animation to an aribitrarily scaled monster and have it work correctly at any size

[BlueSquareInWhiteCircle]

Geat take, very concise and to the point!

[Hydra-BR]

very good video! just decrease the music volume a bit

[selfiestick]

fuck the one thing I hate about gamedesign is the animations, this put things into perspective, nice video, very underliked

[shahmaarbaba]

one question the procedural animation good for low end devices means it's consuming more cpu resources or it's good like separate animations

[SkyGrel]

I would spend some time exploring how AI could create/help creating realistic and expressive animations.
It'd be really cool to make some "key" animations and AI would take them as a reference and create other animations in real time from abstract commands and directions

[OcidGash]

5:05 Quadick trot can *$@# walk #%$#@ etc. Some alien shit, dude

[zarodgaming]

bro ... u're aware of the work that Ubisoft employee or he and his team did a while back?

it looked very professional .. in addition Capcom might have yet another iteration with its own quirks and discoveries, but to my knowledge that is all behind closed doors unfortunately.

[ClassyJacket]

i wish i went to a school that taught math

[triforce]

Unlucky timing with the internet historian downfall