Learn animation programming from first principles and implement modern animation techniques that can be integrated into any game development workflowKey FeaturesBuild a functional and production-ready modern animation system with complete features using C++Learn basic, advanced, and skinned animation programming with this step-by-step guideDiscover the math required to implement cutting edge animation techniques such as inverse kinematics and dual quaternionsBook DescriptionAnimation is one of the most important parts of any game. Modern animation systems work directly with track-driven animation and provide support for advanced techniques such as inverse kinematics (IK), blend trees, and dual quaternion skinning.This book will walk you through everything you need to get an optimized, production-ready animation system up and running, and contains all the code required to build the animation system. Youll start by learning the basic principles, and then delve into the core topics of animation programming by building a curve-based skinned animation system. Youll implement different skinning techniques and explore advanced animation topics such as IK, animation blending, dual quaternion skinning, and crowd rendering. The animation system you will build following this book can be easily integrated into your next game development project. The book is intended to be read from start to finish, although each chapter is self-contained and can be read independently as well.By the end of this book, youll have implemented a modern animation system and got to grips with optimization concepts and advanced animation techniques.What you will learnGet the hang of 3D vectors, matrices, and transforms, and their use in game developmentDiscover various techniques to smoothly blend animationsGet to grips with GLTF file format and its design decisions and data structuresDesign an animation system by using animation tracks and implementing skinningOp