How do I become a games animator ?

illusion red

So I was wondering what exactly do I need to know to become a games animator, and by that I mean what are the technical things I need to know for instance I am guessing I should know about motion capture and blending between the animations, I already have a firm grasp on the principles of animating I just require info on the technical things. I have been using 3ds max for a few years now but I am wondering if I should switch to Maya as it seems to be more favorable for animators, if anyone can enlighten me on this topic it would be greatly appreciated.

Mark Dygert

Blending motion capture won't get anyone hired it will always be the hand key'ed animation that makes the motion capture work and its the hand done work that gets people noticed.

If you're thinking of switching to Maya you probably want to check out HumanIK It's motion builder stuffed into Maya, it has a few warts but its great at retargeting animation and applying mocap. Being familiar with it will be a "bonus" on the resume after your hand key'ed reel wows them.

Outside of HumanIK its a bit tougher to work with motion capture inside of Maya, I would skip it and use motionbuilder as a go-between.

If you stick with max, you can apply mocap to biped or CAT rigs easily they both have a few ways to blend and tweak the mocap data, layers and motion mixer. Even outside rigs like puppetshop have mocap support with clip blending and layers.

So it's really up to you.

monster

Honestly, I would only concentrate on refining your animation skills. If you can do excellent hand keyed animation then you can edit any mocap file that gets thrown at you. Also any place that is using mocap probably has a technical artist that will help with the complex stuff.

Stick with Max if you are comfortable working in there. Most companies will be concerned with your reel, and will give you time to learn new software.

If you want to learn some technical stuff download Unity and practice creating an animation tree with Mecanim. Most animations systems these days are leaning towards node based blending systems. But again a company will give you time to learn this stuff.

Xelioth

The program you use doesn't matter too much, once you learn one you can pick up the others without too much trouble. What you can't pick up easily on-the-job are the basics of good animation. Pick up Animator's Survival Kit or Illusion of Life, and learn how 2D animation works. Understanding 2D will help you with your 3D (2D animation is still MILES ahead of 3D for the moment), even if you never actually animate on paper or in flash or whatever else (though doing so has helped me a ton, so I definitely recommend it).

My contacts so far are all from the film industry, rather than gaming industry, but they pretty unanimously agree that so long as your foundation in animation is sound, it doesn't so much matter about the specifics. I know a guy who recently got into Pixar based on his hand-drawn animation, for instance. Obviously that isn't something that will happen to just anyone, but knowing the core principles is a huge step in the right direction. Worry about the basics first, and knowledge of your specific program will come through practice.