Character Animation

The skill covers locomotion sets and transitions, combat and interaction animations, idles and reactions, plus acted dialogue and cinematic performance. In games it is never one clip: animations have to blend, interrupt and loop under player input, so timing is designed against responsiveness as much as against the fiction.

Postings expect Maya, Blender or 3ds Max, in-engine setup via state machines, animation graphs or blueprints, and often motion capture clean-up alongside keyframe work. Weight, anticipation and follow-through are what portfolios are judged on.

Technical animation and rigging supply the systems this work runs through; 2D animation and VFX cover different material entirely. Character animation is the discipline that decides whether a figure on screen reads as alive or as a model being moved.