Animation Gameplay Essentials - Episode 1/5 : Locomotion
- Vanessa
- Aug 13
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 2
The invisible foundation of your gameplay
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After shipping 12 games, I’ve animated a wide range of gameplay movements: a 40-meter magical snake whipping its tail, an enemy attacking backward through time, or soldiers piloting helicopters.
But the one animation that shows up in every single project? Locomotion.
Walk, run, jog, or sprint , these cycles are the backbone of character navigation. That’s why mastering them is essential when becoming a gameplay animator.
And what better example than Beyond Two Souls to talk about locomotion?With over 200 walking animations just for the heroine, navigation took on a uniquely immersive and emotional direction.
Young Jodie dragging her feet around the family apartment, teenage Jodie strutting with rebellious shoulders, adult Jodie walking with confidence during CIA missions…Every environment and emotion shaped the way she moved.
This contextual locomotion carried the player’s emotional connection to the character.It gave me the opportunity to develop a highly structured methodology to produce these movement cycles efficiently — and be confident in the result with minimal turnaround time.
Animators’ mistake: confusing beautiful with functional
Animators are always driven by the beauty of movement, and when starting out in gameplay, we aim to create “beautiful” locomotion — smooth, natural, realistic.
I made that mistake too.
On Beyond Two Souls, I realized that in a narrative-driven game, gameplay locomotion must first tell a story before it looks good. Young Jodie’s walk wasn’t “natural” , it was dragging, hesitant, sometimes jerky. That approach works for games focused on emotion and narrative immersion.
But be careful, what works for Beyond doesn’t work everywhere. On Ghost Recon, for example, I worked on a locomotion system that had to handle numerous layered weapons.We weren’t aiming for emotional expressiveness , the system was highly complex and became difficult to manage.
The priority was tactical clarity: the player must instantly understand the gear of teammates and enemies.
The trap of “plug-and-play” mocap
“We’ve got the mocap, we extract the cycles, and boom — we’re done!”
I believed that at first. 😄
But here’s the reality I learned: extracting a usable locomotion cycle represents about 5% of the work.The remaining 95% involves:
Analyzing which cycle fits which emotional moment
Looping perfectly without breaking the intention
Managing transitions between emotional states
Ensuring consistency across 20 hours of gameplay
Adapting speed to match the game’s metrics
All those realistic mocap animations give us a massive amount of data to sort through. We have to keep only what serves gameplay and emotion: the imperfect micro-movements that make the attitude believable , a slight sidestep, a slowdown, a glance toward the environment. All of this enhances immersion, but cycles must be carefully managed to ensure seamless blends.
On the flip side, in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, the animations were created using keyframe. The cycles required deep thinking to make the player feel like they’re running fast , even though the actual speed isn’t that high. Movements had to be exaggerated yet believable , one of the hardest balances to achieve. Here, the priority was fluidity and responsiveness for combos, rather than emotional expression.
Choosing the number of steps
How many steps should your cycles have? After several projects, here’s what I’ve learned:
Neutral cycle = 2 or 4 steps These blend easily with all other systems (starts, stops, turns, etc.). The neutral cycle can loop endlessly , it’s your solid foundation.
Attitude cycles = 6, 8, or 12 steps More variation and expression, but harder to integrate. Blends become trickier, yet the feel is more natural , the hero seems more alive and aware of their surroundings.
The trap to avoid: trying to use 16 steps for “more realism” in a neutral cycle. The predictable result: too many transitions, often clunky, and an unmanageable system.
On a recent project, a dev asked me: “What’s the minimum number of cycles to make it work?” My answer: Three well-crafted neutral cycles are better than fifteen rough ones. Every cycle must have a purpose.
The decisions that truly matter for gameplay locomotion
1. How fast does my character walk?
The challenge: With so many different contexts, how do you ensure speed consistency throughout the game?
What I’ve learned: Define clear metrics early on.On Beyond, we had established:
Indoor vs outdoor speed
Neutral walk vs run
Speed per emotional state
Running tests and prototypes before mocap shoots helps align with the game’s needs without distorting the mocap base too much during integration. Test, iterate, retest, and check for consistency.
My practical advice: Create a metrics doc from the very beginning. Even if it’s rough, it’ll help avoid cascading corrections later on.
2. Adapting the approach to the game genre
In a narrative game like Beyond, every step can carry emotion. But that approach doesn’t apply everywhere.
Example: On Ghost Recon, we had to manage eight main weapon types. Chasing emotional expressiveness made the system unmanageable. We focused on perfectly readable neutral cycles: basic walk, tactical walk, emergency run.
Key takeaway: The denser and more reactive the gameplay, the simpler and more reliable the locomotion needs to be.
3. The randomization system for narrative games
On Beyond, how do you avoid repetition over 20 hours of gameplay without losing emotional consistency?
We tested several approaches , here’s the one we chose:
Neutral cycle (2–4 steps): Always triggered first
Attitude cycles (8–12 steps): Randomly triggered during locomotion
Include neutral cycles in the random pool: To avoid making the character feel like they have OCD
Why it works: The player always gets a consistent base (neutral), with subtle variations that enrich the experience if they walk more than 4 steps.
Is it worth the investment?Honestly, for Beyond, yes, it was at the heart of the experience. On a project with less traversal time, probably not. Once again, it all depends on the game’s style.
4. Invisible blends: the art of not being noticed
If Jodie walks with her arms raised to shield her face from the fire, the entire navigation system must stay consistent.Idles, starts, turns, and stops all need to integrate seamlessly with her locomotion attitude.Additional actions — like swatting away smoke or coughing — must return to the initial pose without breaking immersion.
The details that break everything:
A start that doesn’t match the first step of the cycle
A stop that lands on the wrong foot
An attitude variation that disrupts the established rhythm
My approach: I always test my cycles with starts and stops from the very beginning , not at the end with a “we’ll see.” It saves me from redoing half the work. With experience, I know exactly how to break down my animations so everything flows smoothly, but testing remains essential to verify transitions and speed consistency.
3 Validation criteria
Test 1: Contextual consistency “Does this locomotion fit its environment?” On Beyond, I tested each locomotion directly in its destination scene. Narrow hallways vs obstacle-filled forests, snowstorms vs extreme heat , every context had to be mastered.
Test 2: Technical invisibility “Is the player thinking about anything other than locomotion?” If the player is focused on the story and their choices, the system is working. The moment they notice an animation issue, we’ve failed.
Test 3: Long-term durability “After 10 hours of gameplay, does it still hold up?” The hardest to predict. On Beyond, we added layers of variation as long-play tests progressed. Not easy to anticipate, but crucial for the final experience.
Red flags : Mistakes to avoid
🚩 “We’ll adjust it during integration” – No.If it doesn’t work in Maya, it won’t magically work in-game. It’ll be worse, especially with all the transition work it requires.You need to think ahead.
🚩 “We have 50 variations, it’ll feel natural” – False. I’ve seen systems with 30 cycles where half were never used. Five perfect cycles are better than thirty rough ones. Each cycle must carry a clear intention.
🚩 “Players won’t notice the difference” – They feel it. Even subconsciously. Player feedback on Beyond confirmed it , the sense of immersion was real. Games like The Last of Us also use contextual variations to give their characters more soul.
🚩 “The cycle loops, but there’s a slight speed hiccup” –You won’t see it in Maya, but once integrated and repeated, you’ll feel a slowdown every four steps. Speed must be consistent , unless it’s intentional.
🚩 “I’ll let mocap handle the speed” – No. Motion capture is a time-saving tool, but gameplay defines the rules. Cycles must be adapted to the established metrics.
What I’ve learned after 12 projects
Locomotion is the invisible soul of your character. It carries more emotion than many cutscenes, and influences immersion more than most visual effects.Through it, we understand our characters better , and slip more easily into their shoes.
But every project has its own priorities: Narrative immersion for Beyond, tactical clarity for Ghost Recon, action fluidity for Prince of Persia. The key is to adapt your method to the game’s real needs , not just your animator’s desires.
On Beyond, every step Jodie took had to serve the story. On Ghost Recon, every step had to serve tactics. On Prince of Persia, every step had to serve action.
That’s gameplay animation: serving the experience above all.
Next article: Episode 2 – The Idles
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