Hello!
And welcome to New Frame Plus, a series about video
game animation. Are you interested in a
being a video game animator? I mean, you’re watching this, so I assume
you must be at least a little curious. And I don’t blame you! Taking an inanimate object like a
drawing, pixel sprite or digital model and transforming it into a
living, thinking character is slow but satisfying work. Today, I want to tell you how
to not only pursue this career, but EXCEL at it. Of course, as with most
careers, there’s not just one viable path to
success in this industry, but I’m hoping that this video
guide will at least give you a general idea of everything
you’re going to need to learn, how you can land that first gig, and how to be great at the job. And to make sure that this guide
is as thorough as possible, I have enlisted the help
of a bunch of my peers! So, in advance, a special thanks
to: Mike Jungbluth, Jonathan Cooper, Gwen Frey,
Dan Lowe, LeeLee Scaldaferri, Simon Unger, Michael Azzi,
Lana Bachynski, Jason Shum, Kristjan Zadziuk,
Eric Luhta and David Gibson. These are professionals
working in the industry today, many of whom are WAY more
experienced than I am, and their help was invaluable
in putting this video together. But alright, let’s get started! Let’s say you’re
starting from square one, but you KNOW you want to be
an animator for video games. What’s the first
thing you should do? I’d say the first thing is: STEP 1: Figure out what kind
of animation you WANT to do. What kind of animator
do you want to be? Because there’s a wide variety
of animation jobs out there! You could be a 3D animator, you could be a 2D animator, or you could be
a pixel animator! You could be an FX
animator, even! You could specialize in
creating animations for gameplay or for cinematics! Or heck, if you happen to have
a knack for programming or just technical problem solving,
you could be a technical animator. The industry ALWAYS
needs more of those. You may not be certain
of what sort of animator you want to be right
now (and that’s ok!), but it is a good question
to be thinking about, so take the time to
do a little research. At the end of the day,
all of these specializations are built on the same
core animation principles, but they do each have their own
workflows and requisite skill sets. Heck,
try dabbling in a few of them, see if anything strikes your fancy. Knowing which specific sort of animation
work you’re most interested in doing will help you to know which
skills you need to focus on honing. Ok, so now that you have a rough
idea of WHAT you want to do, it’s time for the most
important step on this list... STEP 2: Become good at it. Now it’s time to
learn the craft. Fortunately, there are all kinds
of resources available to you! To start, you’re going to want
to pick up a particular book: The Animator’s Survival
Kit by Richard Williams. Just about every animator I’ve ever
met knows it (and probably owns it). It is STILL one of
the best books on the fundamentals of animation
that you’re going to find. It may describe everything in terms
of old school hand drawn techniques, but the fundamentals
it teaches apply to every form. Odds are: no matter which
form of animation you pursue, you will be referring back to this
book for the rest of your career. So just go ahead and get it now. You might also consider picking
up Game Anim by Jonathan Cooper. This one’s much newer,
in fact it just came out this year, but if games are the medium
you want to be working in, this book is going
to be a big help in understanding the
particulars of the medium. Now, if you’re serious about
pursuing animation as a career, you’re probably going to want
to look into some schools. There are a number of universities out
there with animation programs on offer (some of which are fantastic),
but they can be pretty expensive. Alternatively, you could look
into an online animation schools. These trade schools have the benefit
of being more focused courses, often costing less money,
requiring fewer years of schooling AND allowing you to enroll
from anywhere in the world. I can personally vouch for the
quality of Animation Mentor, but there are several
good options out there, so be prepared to
do some research. There are a lot of metrics you can
use to gauge a school’s quality, but my personal favorite approach is to simply look
at the animation work of its graduates. The average quality of the student
reels coming out of an animation program will say a LOT about the
quality of that program. Better yet, see if you can find out each
school’s graduate job placement rate! What percentage of
graduates from each program actually succeeded in landing an
animation job after graduating? That’ll tell you a LOT about how
effective any given program is at preparing its students
for employment in the industry. It’s also worth at least
considering the school’s location, because schools do tend to network
with the studios closest to them. Now, fair warning to the
2D animators out there: you’re probably going to
have an easier time finding the traditional animation
courses at the universities. And pixel animators, you’re not likely to
find formal courses for your craft anywhere, but pixel animation is all built on
traditional 2D fundamentals anyway, so your best bet is probably
to look into the 2D courses. Then you can dig into online
resources for pixel art on your own time to see how best to apply those traditional
2D skills to your chosen medium. Of course, expensive schooling isn’t
the only route available to you! Self-teaching is
always an option. You absolutely CAN just download a
demo for Maya, Max, Blender, ToonBoom, Spine, or Aseprite and start
figuring this stuff out for yourself. You’ve got a long, difficult road
of self-training ahead, though, so take advantage of every
single resource you can find. Fortunately, there are a wide variety
of resources available to you! Way more than there were
when I was coming up. And now there’s even an
easy way to find them! Got to animatorsresourcekit.blog and you
will find an enormous list of tutorials, books, rigs and tools which you can
use, many of which are freely available! Just remember that your focus should
be learning the CRAFT, not the tools. Once you’ve internalized
the principles of animation, you’ll be able to jump between tools
(and even animation mediums) WAY easier. Now, if you’re hoping to get into
pixel animation, you may need to do some further searching to find
resources specific to your craft. I do know of one particularly good book
called Pixel-Logic by Michael Azzi. It is an excellent resource,
especially for the price. And you can actually find a lot of great
pixel animators sharing tips and tutorials on blogs or Twitter, so seek those
people out and absorb all you can. Honestly, make use of this stuff even
if you ARE attending an animation school. Use every resource you can find and
keep looking for ways to improve. Because, at the end of the day,
animation is a pretty competitive field. A LOT of people are going to be
applying for your dream job, and those people will often have
WAY more experience than you. So if you want to be the
one to land that job offer, the quality and creativity of your
work HAS to stand out from the pack. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you
yourself should stand out from the pack! Quite the contrary: connecting
with other animators should be one
of your top priorities. Don’t work in a bubble! Build yourself a network of
peers who you can give you honest critique. I know it can be scary
asking for feedback, but it is so,
so important to getting better. I won’t lie: it’s going to take
you a long time to truly get good. Internalizing the fundamentals
of animation until they become second nature is likely
to take years of practice. And that’s ok! Take the time you need to
master those fundamentals. I know you’re going to want to jump right
to the exciting stuff and start animating a whole complicated fight sequence or a whole
short film by yourself or something, but trust me: you will git gud so much
faster if you take the time to master those
simple fundamentals first. Maybe start by trying to animate the best
dang bouncing ball anybody has ever seen. Then maybe like a pendulum.
Or this thing. Except better than these. These are my old
student assignments, you can do better than that. But then maybe move on
to simple body mechanics. Like a walk cycle or an attack,
dances, that sort of thing. Then maybe a really
simple acting shot. Keep building to more and more
complicated stuff, mastering the fundamentals along the way,
and you will be SO MUCH better by the end. No one becomes an
animation god overnight. But okay,
now that you’ve put in the time and become an animator
to be reckoned with, your next step is going to be… STEP 3: Build a demo reel. To get a job in animation,
you’re going to need to show potential employers
examples of your work. I can’t stress it enough: this demo reel
is the thing that will get you hired, so you want to put together
the best one possible. If you aren’t sure where to start
or what your reel should look like, try looking up the reels of
other accomplished animators! You can find a lot of them
publicly viewable online, and studying them is a great way to not only
see what a good demo reel should contain, but also show you the level of
quality you need to aim for. If you want a good place to start,
Jonathan Cooper created a Game Anim group on Vimeo that is
jam-packed with high quality reels. I’ll link to it below. I know this may feel intimidating
at first, but trust me: setting a high bar for
yourself will serve you well. Now, a lot of people have written
up tips for constructing demo reels, but here are some of the
most important guidelines: Include only your BEST work,
and polish the HECK out of those shots. You are aiming to put your
best foot forward here, and 45 seconds of
incredible animation will make you look way better
than 3 minutes of mixed quality. I know a guy who landed
a job at Blue Sky with a demo reel that was
just 20 seconds long! I cannot stress enough
how important this is: inconsistent quality is a
BIG red flag for recruiters, because it suggests to them that
you can’t see the difference yet. Your reel is only as good
as the worst shot on it, so if you’re looking at a particular shot and
you’re not sure it’s good enough for the reel, either make it better
or just cut it. Also as a general rule: put your best
shot first and your second best shot last. And don’t hide your animation behind
fancy lighting, particles or camera moves. Good lighting and camera work CAN
be a great plus for your reel, but the people doing
the hiring really want to see proof of
your animation skills, so try not to obscure those
behind flashy presentation. And try to show the full
range of your strengths! Versatility is appealing. Whatever you’re good
at, be it acting shots, realistic body mechanics or cartoony
action, have your reel show that off. That said, it is always in your
best interests to cater your reel to the specific employers
and types of work that you want. Recruiters love to be able
to look at a reel and see that you can do EXACTLY the
kind of animation they need. If you send a reel full of nothing
but wacky cartoony animation to a studio that almost exclusively
makes realistic-looking games, even if your cartoony
animation is AMAZING, even if you probably COULD do the
realistic animation they want, they are very likely to pass
you over for someone else. Same if you send a reel full of acting shots
to a studio that never does cutscenes. Or a reel of 3D animation work to
a studio seeking a pixel artist. So cater your reel to the
workplaces you’re applying to. Heck, make custom versions of the reel to
send to different studios if you got to. And if you want to win
some MAJOR bonus points, show off your animation
working in a game engine! Making animation look good in
animation software is one thing, but making it look good in an
interactive environment with proper blends and transitions is a great way
to prove that you KNOW YOUR STUFF. Also,
never EVER plagiarize work. Don’t copy somebody
else’s animation Don't try to pass off somebody
else’s work as your own. There is no faster way to get
blacklisted from this industry. Just don’t ever do it. And finally, try to make the presentation
as broadly appealing as you can. Avoid including anything
offensive or unprofessional. You don’t want to blow your chance
with a studio over something like an unreadable font or profanity or an
obnoxious background music track. Ok, so now you have a great reel.
At long last, you are ready for... STEP 4: The Job Hunt. At this point,
it’s just a matter of finding out who’s hiring and
sending out applications. Since you have no
professional experience yet, that first job is going to
be the HARDEST one to get, so be ready to cast a WIDE net, and look for internship
opportunities if you’re student. If you go to gamedevmap.com,
you can find a list of most of the game
studios in any given area. This can be a great way to see if
there are any studios near you, but - unless you just happen
to live in a game dev hub like San Francisco or Montreal
or LA or Seattle - chances are that you’re going to
need to be prepared to relocate. But apply everywhere. Even to studios that
aren’t your top pick. Even to jobs that you don’t feel
like you’re good enough for yet. Believe me, the first animation job I landed
coming out of school was at Pixar Canada. I STILL feel like that
shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and ONLY because I actually
took the time to apply on a whim. So just do it. But don’t send in the
same application twice. If you don’t hear back from a place,
just assume they passed on you and move on. Or, even better,
politely ask for feedback! Chances are they won’t have
time, but it never hurts to ask. Maybe later, when you see
them post a job opening again and you’ve
updated your reel a bit, you can give it another go. Networking is going to
help you a lot here too Remember when I said
how important it is to build a network of peers
and animator friends? This is the other reason that it’s
good to get out there and meet people. There are so many great animator
communities to be found on the internet, so go get involved in them
and make some friends! You will be amazed how often those connections
result in future job opportunities. Now, the places you’ll
be applying are likely to vary based on the
medium you’ve chosen. If you’re a 3D animator,
you’re gonna have a lot of options From AAA to Indie, the industry has lots
of demand for 3D animation right now. If you’re a 2D animator,
your options are slightly more limited. Expect to do more of your job hunting in
the indie, mobile and casual gaming scenes. And if you’re a pixel
animator, well, those jobs are almost exclusively coming from
the Indie scene these days, so start looking there. But then, once you’ve finally
landed that first job and officially entered the industry,
it’s time for the final step... STEP 5: Make a good impression. Start your fledgling
career off right. Be professional,
do good work and play nice with others. Be the sort of coworker who people
would love to work with again. This industry is smaller than you
might think. And it can be unstable. Contract gigs, layoffs, even studio closures
are tragically common, so odds are good that
you’re going to be looking for your second game
animation job eventually. And when that day comes,
it’s going to be a LOT easier to find that next job if people
like working with you. So there you go!
That is how you become a game animator. BUT. Let’s say that’s
not enough for you. Maybe you want to be...
a GOOD animator. Maybe even a GREAT animator. What sorts of skills or traits
make somebody GREAT at this job? What will guarantee that your work
is not only consistently excellent, but also consistently
in high demand? Well, here are some tips... TIP #1: Always be learning. Learn more about animation, learn more about tools, learn more about
game development, learn more about storytelling, learn more about people. Keep expanding your skillset. The more stuff you know how to do,
the more valuable an employee you become. And keep learning those animation
fundamentals inside and out! Heck, I know people who have
gone back to animation school even after working in
the industry for YEARS. Mastering those basic principles
never stops being important. TIP #2: Study
movement every day. Our entire craft is about
analyzing and reproducing movement. So, learn to observe that
movement in your daily life! Keep an eye out for interesting
walks or expressions, learn to analyze the
intricacies of body language. Think about how you would
animate that body language, how you would exaggerate it
for maximum clarity and effect. If you see some interesting
movement in a video, frame through that footage to
study the body mechanics at play. Heck, study footage of yourself
performing various actions sometimes. Actually getting up and doing the
movements yourself can be a great way to better feel and internalize
the physicality of an action. TIP #3: Prioritize
studying real life. It can be tempting to spend a lot of
your energy studying other people's animation. But, ultimately, reality is the
thing you should be studying most, because real life is the source
material we’re ALL drawing from. when you’re looking at
another animator’s work, what you are seeing is their
creative interpretation of reality. And if you spend all of your time
analyzing other animators’ interpretations, you’re not going to understand
the source material any better. The only thing you’ll learn is how to replicate
someone else’s interpretation of it. And if that’s all you know, then your
work is going to start looking derivative. Now, don’t get me wrong, studying other people's interpretations
can still be EXTREMELY helpful! Learning how the greats who came
before you interpreted and stylized reality can be inspiring and
teach you a lot of helpful tricks. Just don’t forget that THEY were
working from reality when they did it, and that you should too. TIP #4: Study acting. You don’t necessarily
have to be a good ACTOR (because that is a fundamentally
different skill), but it is still important to
understand the fundamentals of acting. I mean, when you’re animating a character,
you’re effectively acting through them. And you want that performance
to be interesting. So, if you have the chance, take an
acting class or two! Or an improv course. Try to learn how to get
into that acting headspace. And make a habit of studying your
favorite actors’ performances so you can learn from the best. Watch movies and plays, and start building a library
of inspiring performances and characters in your head so you
can reference them in the future. TIP #5: Learn to draw. If you’re planning to be a
traditional 2D animator, you are definitely going to need
to hone your skills with a pencil. Or stylus. Whatever. But even if you’re not planning
to go into hand-drawn animation, drawing is still a very
useful complementary skill. You’ll be able to sketch out your
ideas during the planning phase, and previsualize poses and silhouettes
before diving into your software of choice. I don’t care what kind
of animation you do; a life drawing class will
ONLY make your work better. TIP #6: Avoid
performance clichés. Don’t just default to
animating the first, most obvious creative choice
that pops into your head. Because it’s probably the same predictable idea
that dozens of other animators already did. Instead, take an extra few
minutes and see if you can come up with some other, more interesting
ways to animate something. You might still
go with that first idea, but you don’t want to
just default to it. TIP #7: Be a good team player. Chances are high that you are going
to be working with other people, so it is imperative that you be
somebody people like to work with. You need to be able
to collaborate, communicate with people
from other disciplines, take criticism well and offer it
to others in a supportive way. Read some books on the
subject if you’ve got to. Again,
if people like working with you, they’re going to want to keep
working with you. And that’s good. TIP #8: Know what your
animation needs to achieve in the larger
context of the project. It is possible to
make a beautiful, mind-blowingly awesome
piece of animation that is 100% WRONG for the
project it’s intended for. So it’s important to be able to recognize
what your animation needs to functionally achieve in the greater
context of that project and adapt your work accordingly. You need to be able to adapt to
the aesthetic style of the project. You need to be able to
adapt to the project’s gameplay needs and
technical limitations. If your animation is only good outside
the context of the game it’s meant for, then it isn’t actually
all that good. TIP #9: Learn how to implement
your animations in-game. This is only becoming
more important as a skill. Being able to make beautiful
animation is great, but things always look different
when you put them in-game, when the player has control
and other animations are blending into and out of
yours at unpredictable times. Being able to participate in
the implementation process will not only make you a
more desirable employee, but it’ll also give you the tools you need to
make your work look even better in-engine. And at the end of the day, how it looks
in-engine is all that really matters. Video game animation has to
balance aesthetics, responsiveness and
clarity all at once, and there is no better way to
master that balance than to be the person actually hooking
the animations up in-engine. I know this stuff looks
intimidating from the outside, but trust me: it is SO much easier
to learn now than it used to be. I mean, you can download
Unity and Unreal Engine for free RIGHT NOW and
just start playing around! There is an abundance of free tutorials
and learning resources out there. The Unreal folks have even been doing
educational live streams on the subject. Again, if you can show that you know
how to do this on your actual demo reel, you have no IDEA how many bonus
points that is going to score you. TIP #10: Consider learning
some basic scripting. If you’re like
me, code is scary. But code is also what video games
(and your animation software) run on. So knowing how to do
some basic scripting can unlock all sorts of potential
for your work. It’s amazing the animation
tricks and workflow efficiencies you can achieve with just a
little bit of scripting knowledge. Plus, knowing this stuff will make it
even easier for you to communicate and collaborate with programmers and the
more technical members of your team. At the end of the day, you are not
going to NEED this skill to find work, but having the skill will act as a multiplier
to your effectiveness AND employability. TIP #11: Consider
learning to how to rig. Rigs are the puppetry-like armatures that computer
animators use to animate characters. They can be extremely complicated,
and there are people whose entire job is JUST being good at building
good rigs for the animators to use. But if you know just a little
about building them yourself, you will unlock so many possibilities
for yourself and your work. This is going to be an essential skill
to have when working in small studios where there’s no
dedicated rig builder to be found, and it’ll even be helpful
knowledge in big studios even where there’s an entire team handling
the rig-building for you. Again, not necessarily
something you HAVE to know, but being good at it will make you
an even more valuable employee. Like, no joke: this industry does
not have enough rig builders. They are in HIGH DEMAND. So if you want to dramatically
increase your employability, going this route
is not a bad idea. TIP #12: Learn the
fundamentals of game design. One of the primary purposes
of gameplay animation is to provide visual
information and feedback. That means your animation is
inevitably going to have a significant impact on the larger experience
your team is creating, and it’s really important that
you UNDERSTAND that impact, which means you're going to need to know
the basics of game design. You don’t have to be an expert, but knowing those design fundamentals
is going to be JUST as important as understanding the basics
of acting or storytelling. Finally,
and perhaps most importantly: TIP #13: Keep pushing
yourself to get better. You are never going to hit a point
where you have finished getting better. Even the best animators in
the world are still learning and honing their
craft with every project. That’s WHY they are
the best at what they do. My first creative
director put it to me this way: you will never reach the top climbing
this mountain, because there is no top. You’ll see a ledge above you that
looks like the top from where you are, but once you finally
get yourself up there, that’s when you’re going to see the
next cliff face waiting ahead. So just take a minute to
celebrate how far you’ve come, and then start climbing again. If you do choose to climb this
mountain yourself, I wish you the best of luck, and I’m very excited to see
the animation you create. And just know that you won’t
be climbing that mountain alone! This industry is full of fellow climbers
who are happy to help each other out. And I hope that you have
found THIS to be helpful! I want to thank the Animation Exchange
for hosting the debut of this video, as well as all of those
wonderful animators who contributed their
knowledge to the script. If you’re interested in seeing
more videos about game animation, be sure to subscribe
to New Frame Plus, and consider supporting the
show like all these nice people. Thanks,
and I’ll see you next time! [music]
