Procedural Generation of Mammals and Locomotion

Summary

For my game The Big Forest I want to have creatures that are both procedurally generated and animated, which, as expected, is quite a research challenge. As mentioned in my 2024 retrospective, I spent the last six months of 2024 working on this — three months on procedural model generation and three months on procedural animation. My work on the creatures actually started earlier though. According to my commit history, I started in 2021 after shipping Eye of the Temple for PCVR, though my work on it prior to 2024 was sporadic. Though the creatures are still very far from where they need to be, I'll write a bit here about my progress so far. The goal I need lots of forest creatures for the gameplay of The Big Forest, some of which will revolve around identifying specific creatures to use for various unique purposes. I prototyped the gameplay using simple sprites for creatures, but the final game requires creatures that are fully 3D and fit well within the game's forest terrain. I've seen a fair amount of projects with procedural creatures. It's not too hard to create a simple torso with legs, randomizing the configuration, and animating movement by transitioning the feet between footsteps in straight lines or simple arcs. This works fine for bugs, spiders, lizards and other crawly critters, as well as for aliens and alien-like fantasy creatures. The project Critter Crosser is doing very cool things with this. While it features mammals too, I'm not sure they'd translate well outside the game's intentionally low-res, quirky aesthetic. If we also consider games where only the animation is procedural, Rain World is another example where this works great for its low-definition but highly dynamic alien-like creatures. Spore is a classic example too, though its creatures often end up looking both alien and goofy. For The Big Forest though, I want creatures that feel like they truly belong in a forest, with movement and design reminiscent of quadruped mammals like foxes, bea...