Animating for Games - Game Character Development with Maya - page 940

Animation Categories
Real-time animation is handled differently from big-screen animation. To make the game
truly interactive, each animation has to be handled separately, so that the correct one can
run when the player requests it.
In all, real-time animation can be separated into the five principal categories discussed in
this section. Each animation you create will fit into one of these categories.
Idle and Fidget Animations
When the player stops controlling the character, it will begin to cycle randomly through
various animations. If, for example, the character is standing still, a default breathing
animation will play, in which the shoulders and chest rise and fall and the arms swing
slightly—this is the idle animation. Once this has played for a while, another animation
will randomly kick in; this could involve the character's looking around aimlessly, tapping
atoe,orpickingtheirnose;theintentistogivethemvarietyandsomefeelingoflife.These
variants are know as fidget animations. Both idle and fidget animations need to be looped
or cycled and so could also come under the next category, cycle animations.
Cycle Animations
Almost all the animations involving the character's physical movement (except idle or fid-
get animations, where the character is standing still) will be based on a single sequence,
looping. A walk cycle is a good example of a cycle animation; this begins at the crossover
point of the animation (the stage when the legs cross over from the side view) and ends
in the same place. The animation can be looped seamlessly, giving the impression that the
character can walk continuously.
Four-Stage Animations
The four-stage animation can also be described as a Move In, Hold, Cycle, and Move Out
sequence. This sequence can be used when the character needs to change states temporar-
ily; say climbing a ladder, for instance.
FortheMoveIn,youneedastartinganimationwherethecharactergrabsholdoftheladder
and moves into a pose where they can ascend or descend it easily. The Hold is this pose
held while the player decides what they want to do; this Hold can be classed as an idle an-
imation and so could possibly have other idle or fidget animations branching from it.