Animation makes video games come alive. It injects each game with its unique mood and atmosphere, all while creating immersive worlds and compelling characters that hook players and keep them coming back for more. Animation even impacts game mechanics, determining how characters move and interact with their environments.
Guiding this effort are professional animators who share a love of game art and a desire to push creative boundaries. Read on to learn why animation is such a key part of game design and what animators can accomplish when equipped with the right skills.
Animation as a Core Component of Gameplay
Every game uses animation in its own way. Big-budget action titles lean heavily on motion-captured animations performed by talented actors. Others opt for a minimalist approach, aiming to establish a solemn tone or mood. Regardless of the animation budget or the sheer number of moves displayed on screen, game animation determines how each game looks and how it feels to navigate each gaming environment.
These days, talented artists have a wealth of tools and techniques at their disposal, making it possible to turn both 2D and 3D animation into unforgettable gameplay experiences. While animation plays a slightly different role in each game, its core functions include the following:
Enhancing Player Interaction
As soon as players enter gaming worlds, they aim to find and interact with the many objects that occupy each virtual environment. One of the thrills of gaming is discovering an object that’s fully interactive, especially when this defies expectations. Player-object interactions can be littered throughout each game, allowing for a powerful feeling of discovery and wonder. It’s up to the artists and animators to make each of these interactions memorable, often by using animation software to capture the realistic feeling of chopping down a tree, climbing a mountain, or otherwise interacting with an immersive gaming world.
Realistic Character Movements
While some games favor an abstract approach to movement — complete with distorted physics and gravity-defying maneuvers — others must be grounded in reality. This means crafting characters who move in realistic ways, without making them any less fun to control.
Animators must strike a balance between realistic movement and a fun gameplay experience. This means characters should not move too slowly or with too much of an animation-based priority to their motions. Players shouldn’t feel as though their movements are canned or that they merely trigger sets of animations; movement should always feel fluid.
Environmental Animations
A living, breathing game world should always feature environmental set pieces that feel like they could change at any moment. Examples might include storm clouds forming in the distance or trees that sway in the breeze. These environmental animations can be implemented using real-time rendering. These and other video game animation techniques are used to flesh out the game world with which every character interacts.
Animation Techniques in Modern Video Games
Many high-level animation techniques promise to elevate both the functional and stylistic aspects of gaming. Different techniques are relevant in different situations, so it’s up to the animator to determine which strategies will heighten both the gameplay and the narrative. Examples include:
Keyframe Animation
These days, several time-saving techniques occupy the world of character animation. One of the most influential is keyframe animation, in which key frames of a specific animation sequence are completed manually, while the in-between frames are created by animation software to complete the transition.
A solid example of this can be found in a baseball player at the plate (as in MLB The Show): The initial frame as he begins swinging the bat — and the end frame of him making contact with the ball — would be done manually by the animator, while software creates the transitional frames of their swing in motion.
Motion Capture
Many of the world’s most popular video games use motion capture animation techniques to bring compelling performances into the game. Actors such as Luke Roberts in Silent Hill 2 and Troy Baker in The Last of Us have benefited from this technique, which utilizes sensors and cameras that track every aspect of the actor’s movements. The term ‘performance capture’ has come to describe the overall package that combines both body movements plus intricate facial expressions and movements into one impressive animation package.
Procedural Animation
Creating animations from scratch is simply not realistic for some animators, who may lack the time or money needed to undertake such a project. In these cases, procedural animation is a game-changer. This involves creating a set of guidelines for the animation software, which churns out procedurally generated animations that can be used in numerous ways. A common example of procedural animation is known as ragdoll physics, where the character model’s movements are based entirely on physics, not animation.
Animation’s Impact on Player Immersion
Video games have the unique power to transport players into entirely new worlds. Unlike movies or books, which offer passive glimpses into imagined places, video games invite players to actively explore, discover hidden paths, and interact deeply with the environment around them.
However, this immersion can be quickly interrupted if certain elements begin to glitch or act in an unrealistic or unexpected way. As quickly as fantastic animation can pull someone into a game’s universe, poor animation can shoot them right back into the real world, breaking the immersion in the process.
Emotional Storytelling Through Animation
As mentioned above, performance capture technology has turned some video games into an emotional tour de force, in which players feel the same emotions as the characters they play. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has even begun awarding actors and actresses for their performances in games.
Not only are big-budget games with high-profile actors able to deliver deeply emotional performances, but smaller-scale titles are just as capable of bringing emotions out of players. It takes skilled animators to translate these powerful performances into the digital world, ensuring that the most subtle facial expressions and body movements contribute to on-screen magic.
Animations and Gameplay Feedback
Players love experimenting in the game worlds built by design and art teams. With this experimentation comes a distinct set of challenges for animators. Player characters need to know whether they can (or should) perform certain tasks — and the best way to learn is through animation and visual feedback. This can establish the ground rules of the in-game universe. Examples might include a vigorous shaking of the head if a character approaches water but is unable to swim or obvious physical exertion when attempting to lift heavy objects.
Animations for Worldbuilding
The most memorable game worlds are not only fun to explore but also feel like they’ve been lived in. These areas need to have a cohesive look that fits into the overall design philosophy of the game, along with the overarching narrative. Keeping specific animation sets consistent can go a long way toward establishing the feel of these worlds. This gives the player a feeling of familiarity while journeying through the game.
Challenges and Innovations in Game Animation
Video games are an ever-evolving medium, thanks to both the rapid rate of technological development as well as the trends and ideas that players latch onto. While certain techniques and styles may be hot one day and cold the next, there will always be a standard design ethos that creators will want to follow, regardless of their art styles and the animation software they use. The ability to implement these core principles into a look and feel that’s unique and fluid is crucial for success as an animator.
Balancing Realism and Style
Game animation needs to appear realistic enough to make gameplay feel natural or intuitive, but without limiting the visual appeal of game art. This can be a difficult balance to strike, as realistic movements require an elite level of technical skill. A refined and focused style is key to establishing a visual tone that will then make it easier for the animators to favor specific types of movement without sacrificing aesthetics.
Optimizing Animations for Performance
In a perfect world, artists and animators would be able to design characters, worlds, and movements without any artistic limitations. In reality, creators must weigh every artistic decision against the technical aspects that make games function in the first place. Fantastic animations or finely detailed characters won’t amount to much if their artistry results in the frame rate dropping or the physics engine breaking. Every piece of animation must be optimized to ensure that it still functions within the gameplay engine.
Case Studies: Animation in Iconic Video Games
There’s no shortage of stunning video games that push the artistic and technical limits of animation and design. Every year, something new comes along that makes players take notice. Below, we highlight a few of the most visually impressive games of the last decade.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Rockstar Games are the kings of the open world. Their crowning achievement raised the bar for what is possible for character animation and video game graphics. Red Dead Redemption 2 features unforgettable Wild West scenery, populated with hundreds of characters that look as if they were pulled straight from a Sam Peckinpah film. It took Rockstar more than eight years to develop Red Dead Redemption 2, but the end result was well worth the wait.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Each new Legend of Zelda entry in the series gains more ground for the player to explore as the tunic-clad swordsman Link. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild took this evolution to the extreme, with a sprawling game world that featured a novel idea: If you could see it, you could explore it. Nintendo’s animators found ways to work around the technical shortcomings of the Switch console (as well as the previous generation’s Wii U). They struck gold with a physics system that had never been seen before in a Zelda game.
God of War (2018)
Sony’s God of War franchise has been thrilling players since the PlayStation 2 days, but the team at Santa Monica Studio took the franchise to a whole new level in 2018. God of War featured a new take on Norse mythology as series staple Kratos shepherded his son Atreus through this new story. This represented a triumph of not only performance capture techniques but also world-building and 3D animation.
Future Trends in Game Animation
Game animation has come a long way in recent years, but the pace of change will continue to accelerate as new trends and technologies take over.
Procedural Animation and Real-Time Physics
Time-tested techniques like procedural animation (leveraging algorithms to generate animations dynamically) and real-time physics (laws of physics specific to a game) aren’t going anywhere, as evidenced by the enduring popularity of titles such as Minecraft and Gang Beasts. There is still much that can be done with these techniques. Teams without the time or money afforded to a company like Rockstar can use these video game animation techniques to bring exciting new ideas to life.
Virtual Reality and Animation
Virtual reality (VR) is here to stay, with tech heavyweights like Facebook and Apple making large investments in VR and AR. Character design and game art must be tackled from a slightly different perspective when it comes to VR games, but it’s a challenge worth taking up for animators looking to take their skills to a new level.
Animation and Cross-Platform Development
Many of the most popular games in the world can be played on several different platforms, from consoles and phones to web browsers and even smartwatches. Creating art assets and animation sets for multiple platforms may not always seem realistic, though, so animators must be mindful of this aspect of the design process.
Breathe Life Into Compelling Game Environments With an Animation Degree From RMCAD
Ready to infuse your love of gaming into your work as an animator? Discover new possibilities with Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Our on-campus and online animation degree programs include 2D and 3D tracks that reveal the secrets of storyboarding, character design, and more. Get in touch for additional information or take the next step and apply today.
