This had the advantage of low CPU utilization, as the data needed to animate a 'dying' character was chosen from a set number of pre-drawn frames. As computers increased in power, it became possible to do limited real-time physical simulations, which made death animations more realistic.Įarly video games used manually created animations for a character’s death sequences. Ragdoll physics is a type of procedural animation used by physics engines, which is often used as a replacement for traditional static death animations in video games and animated films.
Still from an early 1997 animation using ragdoll physics
