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Animation Bootcamp: An Indie Approach to Procedural Animation

GDC Festival of Gaming · talk · Watch on YouTube

Game programming & enginesIndie game developmentAnimation & visual effects

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.

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.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2021, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “David Rosen pulled off quite a few little masterpieces”

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

    dognotdog, 2021-12 · Recommendation · in “The Matrix Is Unreal”

  2. “Here's a video I've enjoyed of David Rosen giving a presentation at Game Developers Conference 2014”

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

    neandrake, 2022-04 · Recommendation · in “Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement”

  3. “some of their approaches were immensely cool”

    Procedural animation built from just a few keyframes.

    KronisLV, 2022-04 · Recommendation · in “Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement”

  4. “In that example, they do the character's physics first (just a ball), then match the animation to it.”

    Shows physics driving animation speed via a surveyor wheel approach.

    turtledragonfly, 2024-01 · Recommendation · in “PIDs: Creating Stable Control in Games”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: procedural animation, inverse kinematics, indie games, overgrowth, game feel

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