This Summer, the Game Developer Conference (GDC) returned once again as a remote event. The online presence of the show opened the door for hosts to prerecord their keynotes in advance, allowing for special guests who may not have been able to attend otherwise, especially due to travel restrictions. One of the keynotes we were especially excited about was "Take Control of Animation", which looked at Remedy's new animation system.
The talk was broadcast on July 19th, and was hosted by Remedy's Ville Ruusutie (Principal Animation Programmer) and Ilkka Kuusela (Lead Animator). Initially available to watch live by "All Access Pass" and "Summits Pass" owners, the keynote was later posted in full on the GDC website. You can watch it in full for free via the GDC Vault, HERE!
[Update 14/12/2021 19:35: The lecture has also been added to the GDC YouTube channel.]
Official Keynote Description: As Remedy's latest game Control was entering production, the team was hit by a surprise when their animation middleware was taken off the market. After evaluating their options, they chose to build their own technology from scratch. Remedy's Principal Animation Programmer Ville Ruusutie and Lead Animator Ilkka Kuusela describe the team's journey from the first, stripped-down iteration of their own technology 6 months before their first E3 demo, to finally shipping a multiplatform game with a complex playable character, 11 enemy archetypes, massive boss fights, cinematics and systemic conversations. This talk will give the audience a look into Remedy's new animation system, show Remedy's animation pipeline and debugging tools for Motion Matching, and discuss the unique features they added to the animation system to tackle common game animation scenarios like cinematic transitions.
