HA5 - Task 1

Animation in Video Games

Animation in video games is a key part of the game that provides the experience and immerses the player in the game, Without animation in video games nothing would happen a game would be a collection f static assets that do nothing and would be very boring for players. 

The above video demonstrates some actions many video game characters need to function properly and the process of doing so, Every character needs a walk cycle to move around the game environment realistically and capturing videos or using reference photography as references helps the creator create realistic movement for a character. This is just one stage in the development process, when all the vital movements have been added to the character the developer can then work on adding optional animations such as idle stances or quirks that make the character feel human like scratching an itch or laboured breathing. 

Mocap is one of the more popular ways video game animations are developed, Mocap is a productin process that involves stunt actors or the voice actors of the characters themselves donning full body suits with nodes attached that track their every movement and turn these movements into readable data on a computer that can be used in 3D software. it is much easier to animate fast complicated movements through mocap due to the fact it is being performed by a real human and is thus realistic.

As can be seen in the above video character assets can be mapped and then tweaked to add detail through mo cap leading to a cleaner better performing asset in game and making the characters movements seem more life like and fluid

Animation in Television

Animation in television is a much more convoluted and tedious process due to every frame of the animation process needing to be hand drawn and animated. This fact leads to needing a team to keep on top of projects companies like Disney and Pixar have thousand of employees also due to this fact as they have to release films to make money so the more fims they wish to release the more projects they need to complete and so on and so forth.

5 minutes of footage in hand drawn animation can require up to 10,000 single frames to perform well, Voice actors must also be hired for animations in television due to the fact the only other source of sound is computer generated which sounds very robotic and inhuman when used for speech.

Gertie the dinosaur is one of the eariest pieces of keyframe animation in history, It is important to the history of animation as it is the first animation to focus on a main character, people were not used to being able to see the emotion and actions of a character move in real tie and it came as quite a sock to the word when the creator of Gertie the dinosaur, Winsor McCay, Took "her" on tour around america.