3D Animator

Game animation is interactive animation. A run cycle has to blend into a turn, a hit reaction has to interrupt whatever is playing, and every clip has to stay readable when the player cancels it halfway through. The animator therefore thinks in state machines and blend trees as much as in keyframes.

The work runs from rigging and skinning through keyframe animation to the cleanup of motion capture, with Maya as the common authoring tool and Unreal or Unity for integration and testing in the build.

Character animators concentrate on performance and weight, technical animators on rigs, tools and the systems that play the clips back. Cinematic work sits closer to film, while gameplay animation is judged by how it feels under a controller.