Task 3 – 3D Gameplay Animation Research

Task 3 – 3D Gameplay Animation Research

Animation In Movies

When it comes to animation for movies, the animator is only responsible for animating whatever is in the view of the shot camera. In other words they only have to worry about one camera angle at a time.

If you’re watching a movie, you hit the “Play” button on a movie you can’t rotate around to look at the whole set. So you’re stuck looking at whatever the camera is viewing. This allows the animator to cheat for things that can't be seen from the current perspective.

Animation In Games

Games, however, are meant to be interactive. When you play a game, you’ll have complete control of the character and the camera. You’re the one driving the story forward and making the character move. So not only does the animation need to look good, it needs to look good from every possible angle.

For instance, if the game is third person, and the player rotates the camera around they’ll see the walk or run cycle from a completely new angle. 

Motion Capture

To ensure the game is as realistic as possible motion capture is a technique that’s being used more often, especially for the more subtle acting cut scenes like you would find in The Last of Us. As a video game animator motion capture is something you will need to become familiar with, because more studios are implementing it into their pipeline.