Ask a Game Dev

Let me try to answer your question in a slightly roundabout way. Let’s talk about motion capture for a moment. A lot of gamers seem to think that, for video games, animators will hire actors to wear the motion capture suits, record some data, and then just plug that data into the game and everything is great. This is not how it works. Mocap is only the beginning, not the entire process.

If you’ve read my [Animation Primer], you know that animation data is generally represented as a sequence of specific positions over time. Each of these sets of positions is called a frame. The character is placed in these positions in order. The speed at which the character changes position to match the frame is called the frame rate. However, frame rate isn’t just used for playback. Computers run things in discrete time steps, after all, and computers capture motion data. When we record motion capture, we record it at a certain number of frames per second too. Most motion capture data is recorded at much higher frame rates than we expect games to display - typically around 120 to 160 frames per second. Just consider - if we have 120 to 160 frames per second of animation data, how do we choose which frames to display for the game that displays at 60 frames per second?

We could do it the basic way - just show every other frame we recorded. 120 fps becomes 60 fps this way, and everything is played back at the same speed it was captured. But that’s assuming that the data we motion captured is enough, and assuming that real life motion is what we’re after. If we’re talking about a game like Nier Automata, for example, where the main character is an android with greater capabilities than a human actor who’s goal isn’t to actually hurt anyone during motion capture settings, things change. So who decides what frames of animation get put into the actual final product? This is where the animator comes in.

A lot of dealing with motion capture data is “cleaning it up” - chopping off the bits that lead to and from the reference pose, making it run to the target frame rate, and choosing frame data that looks right for the game experience. These changes can be subtle or they might be large. Sometimes you want a 1:1 rate with the original mocap data, and sometimes you want to slow something down, or speed something up so that it reads better or gives a different impression of the motion. There are even times where animators will adjust certain parts to be faster while others are slower. Look at the differences in the above animations - they might seem small at first glance, but the edited frame has a lot more emphasis of the action to the viewer. The raw mocap looks more like the attacker is simply walking up from behind and pushing the victim. While this might work in real life, it doesn’t read as well in a video game. In the edited animation, the attacker has some anticipation built in before the stab to make it look better. Look at the added pull back and then stab forward with the left hand and how the attacker grabs and maintains his hold on the victim’s mouth in the edited animation. See how the overall time is about the same, but some parts were sped up in order to make room for the added anticipation movements?

Motion capture suits also don’t have the extra bells and whistles of in-game costumes. Any extra bits like tendrils, robot arms, wings, tail, or clothing has to be animated separately. That typically means either some sort of simulation (usually via physics or some sort of procedural system), or hand-animating the extra bits. Some stuff lends itself more easily to procedural motion, like clothing. Physical features like tentacles, antennae, wings, or tails tend to be hand-animated, and that’s all about the animator’s skill at making legible motion.

The real answer to your question is that fluid-looking animation isn’t so much a question of the frame rate as it is a testament to animator skill. Animation looks fluid because the animators have carefully selected the right frames to string together to best convey the motion you’re seeing. This is the major difference between really good-looking animations and passable “ok” animations. It’s not a question of how many frames of animation there are, it’s what the animator does with those frames.

Got a burning question you want answered?

Animations for games are a little bit different in the specifics than traditional animation techniques and principles, though you should definitely have a strong grasp of animation fundamentals before knowing how and why to break those rules when needed. For the uninitiated, I really recommend [Art Eater’s post “Darkstalkers and the Twelve Principles of Animation”].

Game animation in particular differs from traditional animation because of how interactive games are. Traditional animators almost never need to worry about changing or blending on the fly, because they have established shots and camera angles that are effectively set in stone. The length and duration is already known, so they can spend their time making the animations look their best from the angle of view, while games often have to be viewable from many angles, and need to be able to read well while easily getting interrupted through various means and effects like initiating another action, which means familiarity with things like partial animations and creating assets for animation blending. Game animators often also need to work to clean up motion capturing and work within the constraints of limited rigging while still making things look good.

That said, you asked for animation courses and not just a basic primer on how animation differs from traditional. I’m not an artist, but I did ask some artist friends about this and the general response are the game animation workshops at iAnimate.net.

[Click link here]

Please keep in mind that these are four 11-week workshops, and they are not free. This is an actual online course to teach you these things, but they come at the recommendation of actual industry professionals.

In addition to iAnimate, there’s also 3DMotive.com, which has online tutorials and lessons about 3D art in general - modeling, texturing, animating, etc. They have a number of free lessons as well as paid.

[Click link here]

Finally, you might want to check out ReAnimators.net, which is a great online resource for animators in general. They specialize in a podcast on various aspects of game animation, and have a forum where you can ask questions, discuss animation in general, and even hire animators or find work.

[Click link here][Forum Link here]

I hope this answers your question. Good luck on the animation front, it’s a challenging but rewarding field and highly in demand.

It always seems daunting when you run into the “need experience to get experience” wall, but there are ways around there. If you’re specializing in animation, the best thing you can do to sharpen your skills is to actually animate game. The best way to show this off is to work on your animation reel. Here is a sample reel from a professional animator that I’ve worked with before:

Obviously, you don’t need something this extensive or polished, but if you watch it critically, you can see how Mr. Bergeron showcases a variety of animations he's worked on. He shows off mechanical movements like hand to hand combat, acrobatic traversals and locomotion, but also the emotions of surprise, suspicion, physical struggling, curiosity, fear, and more. 

The only real way to build your skills and keep them sharp is by working on things. Try animating some game scenes using tools like Kismet or the Source cutscene creator. If you have the tools, try creating your own animations for games. Create some new animations for a moddable game like Skyrim or Half-Life. Play around with the rig and see what works and looks good in game.

If you still aren’t sure, try the polycount forums. Post some of your work, and then ask for critiques. Many professional and industry artists frequent the forums, and can provide you with some advice and direction for improvement, as well as what to work on. Just remember - don’t take any sort of critique personally; try to see where the criticism is coming from and address it in your work. You can also try their work opportunities subforum and volunteer your services to groups or teams looking for animators.

As is the case with most artists, your portfolio and reel will be the most important thing when applying for work. You want to make sure that your reel demonstrates your best work, as well as work from a variety of environments. You want their senior animators to see that you can do the work they want - the ability to convey minute details and aspects of character through the motion of the models in an extremely short amount of time. The best way to get better at this is by doing it... and doing as much of it as you can. The more you do, the better you'll become at it.