Animation for Games Information

[Littleberu]

In games animations are often what we call "cycle". They're basically actions the main character or the other characters will have to do during the game ; running, jumping, shooting, being shot, being knocked down, etc...

Often, it's not very creative and pretty repetitive job, but when you get to some project other than FPS and shooters such as Splinter Cell or PoP, you get to be more creative.

For the process, often, the engine itself has a plugin, or at least a kind of importer, to import the animation from the skeleton you used into a proprietary skeleton used in the game. It's also often the same skeletons.

[skeen]

Alright, so you'd just do the animations normally? Like if I were to have a guy with a sword standing idly, and then wanted to make him swing the sword, I'd just do an idle animation and a sword swing animation, and the game engine itself is the thing that makes them work together?

Also, generally, what kind of skeletal restrictions are there? I know this kind of thing would change from engine to engine, but are there any near-normal rules?

[DavidWeinstein]

Skeen,

Don't worry about the rigs and all that stuff man. JUST ANIMATE and make that kick ass.

In general all "IN-GAME" animation are done "In Place". Meaning the character doesnt walk through space. He walks in place. Like a character running on a treadmill. The programers are the ones who make the character move through space. The only animations that generally move through space are actions like a "Death" piece. If the character were to get blown up and die... you could animate him getting blown through the air (through 3d space) and land on the floor and die.

Another thing to keep in mind when doing animation for games... is that if your character is going to have a "START" pose. This is the pose that all animations will "BLEND" in and out of. For example... you have your dude standing with his sword in his "IDLE" pose... he swings his sword for an attack - he must now return to his "IDLE" pose. This is so that the character can blend in and our of all his attacks - and other actions seamlessly. We don't want pops and stuff like that happening.

Good animations to focus on for games for someone looking to break into that industry are: walk cycle - run cycle - death actions - weapon attacks - jumps - crawls & idles.

Any other questions - feel free to shout them out at me. Even though i don't work in games anymore I spend 2 years on 5 titles! So shout at me! -daviD

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