Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture, Video/Markerless Capture

In Studio, Out of Town (Internal Partner) - Direct in person, Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Rigging and/or Skinning, DCC Tools

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator

Lead, Director, Studio Manager/HR

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Cinematics, Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

Achieving AAA quality with a small team i.e. supply.

Technical animation skill shortage.

What degree of technical knowledge will be required to work as an animator in 10-15 years time. Will machine learning/neural network based solutions require all animators to straddle the line between engineer and animator, and how smaller teams cope with these new methods.

We don’t have the budget for a technical animator so my director and I work together to cover that role.

Severe lack of junior positions and an abundance of mid/senior roles. It seems that not many studios are willing or able to put in the work to hire and train juniors to that mid level. This also makes it near impossible to find in house work if you live outside of major entertainment hubs since no companies are willing to hire juniors from out of country.

Cinematics, Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

Implementation with gameplay

Sharing with partner/family member

Cinematics, Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Full-time (Temporary/Contract)

The number of programmers helping with animation will change depending on who is working on what at the time of implementation. Usually 1 programmer will be helping with animations, but another may help if their workload elsewhere has dropped.

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Adding to Animation Lists/Sets, Intermediate Complexity Tasks (e.g. update/add to existing state graphs, blends spaces, additives/layers)

Lack of direction on what to work on next, alongside lack of deadline for current work

Motion Capture, Motion Matching, Advanced Rigging (e.g. rig generation), engine implementation (knowledge of code needed for advanced implementation in engines like Unity)

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator, Lead Animation Programmer

While company is 150, the team I'm on is around 30-40 people. We have no dedicated technical animator, and the one programmer we have, we get when she has time from her other tasks.

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Studio mainly just cleans the motion capture data and uses it, and doesn't really know how to retime it or exaggerate it or stylize it in any way

Teaching the new processes for motion matching, motion capture, and even basic keyframing. Though learning these new tech shifts will help many of adapt to the new processes in game animation.

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Sharing with partner/family member

Optical Motion Capture, Performance Capture

In Studio, Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Cinematics, AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Lead, Studio Manager/HR

Animator, Technical Animator, Lead/Director

Sharing with partner/family member

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Lead, Studio Manager/HR

Game has stabilized so no support for improving systems

Full-time (Temporary/Contract)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC, Adding to Animation Lists/Sets, Tagging, Intermediate Complexity Tasks (e.g. update/add to existing state graphs, blends spaces, additives/layers)

External provider (Daycare/Nanny/School)

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Lead, Director, Studio Manager/HR

Number of resources needed

Lack of stylized cartoony animation

Animator, Technical Animator, Lead/Director

Optical Motion Capture, Performance Capture

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator, Lead Animation Programmer

Conservative technical leadership, and lack of animators

Performance in gameplay, though motion matching is improving that.

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Minigame animations

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Utilizing its animators to the best of its ability. There's an over-reliance on motion-capture despite having dozens of experienced animators who could probably keyframe a lot of what is needed. I personally feel that it's stifling the animators' potential growth

I think that the work-life balance of animation is still very messy at the best of times. Animation is something that fights against a hard deadline and there are certain aspects that could cause delays that can easily be overlooked.

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

In Studio, In Town (External Partner)

We have a system of craft managers which handles performance reviews, 1:1 etc. However, our lead animator is also the craft manager for the character team of which the animators are formally a part of.

Our main issue is quality vs quantity in regards to scheduling.

Optical Motion Capture, Performance Capture, Video/Markerless Capture

In Studio, In Town (External Partner), Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Cinematics, Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Rigging and/or Skinning

Exporting from DCC, Adding to Animation Lists/Sets, Intermediate Complexity Tasks (e.g. update/add to existing state graphs, blends spaces, additives/layers)

Technical & engine support

Violence-oriented subject matter

Thanks for this survey! Missed opportunity to gather salary information to match demographic - hope this is an annual thing.

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture

Since I've been at the studio, we've completed one performance capture session at an external location, with a number of smaller sessions using the Xsens suits in the office or at home

Haven't fully ramped up animation outsourcing yet, but the thought is that we will mainly be outsourcing cinematics and keeping most gameplay work in-house

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Making time for polished animations. We are always behind.

Real money, skill-based (casino, web, mobile)

In Town (External Partner), Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person, Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Rigging and/or Skinning

Intermediate Complexity Tasks (e.g. update/add to existing state graphs, blends spaces, additives/layers), Advanced Complexity Tasks (e.g. state graph architecture, visual scripting, procedural systems, ik, ragdolls)

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Lead, Director, Studio Manager/HR

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Pipeline, Space for Capture

Full-time (Temporary/Contract)

Optical Motion Capture, Performance Capture

In Studio, Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

amount of characters vs only being one animator

Blender implementation with UE4 is still a bit troublesome, especially with stretchy bones

AAA, Mobile, Online

Company has a proprietary engine. My team uses Unity.

Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Properly addressing technical debt and getting leadership to understand that it is important.

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC, Tagging

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

In Studio, Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Data acquisition and accuracy of retargets

Making mocap not feel like motion capture

Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator

Code support / Gameplay programmers

Designers understanding the value and how to use animation correctly

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

In Studio, Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Animation implementation.

hiring junior animators that have potential but there only seeking veterans or animation's that look grounded

technical side and motion capture and more body mechanics in gameplay animation more blending

Optical Motion Capture, Video/Markerless Capture

Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Lead Animator, Animation Director

amount of animation, overall time and the balance between Gamedesign, Code and Animators.

Animation Director, Technical Animation Director

Lead, Director, Studio Manager/HR

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC, Tagging

No knowledge of the potential of gameplay animators. We are the studios first ever animation team and they do not understand how crucial we are. Lack of investment in necessary skills (no animation programmers, experienced technical animators)

It will become entirely mocap. I do not see the point, I want to celebrate animation as an art form, not churn through data fixing up contacts and walk speeds.

Cinematics, AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Retargets

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Blending between systems. Multiple bodytypes. Seamlessness overall.

Price of realism. Real-time rigs in 3d software.

Without real-time retargeting solutions it will be difficulty to reach simulation level quality. Motion matching is still unexplored and cost is super high.

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Cinematics, AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC, Intermediate Complexity Tasks (e.g. update/add to existing state graphs, blends spaces, additives/layers)

Lead, Studio Manager/HR

Rigging support. Red9 is helping a lot.

It’s always understaffed with relation to the quantity of animations animators have to clean up or key.

Optical Motion Capture, Performance Capture

In Studio, Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Adding to Animation Lists/Sets

Innovation and tech support

Pushing the bar and quality.. relying too much on quantity and mocap

Sharing with partner/family member

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture, Budget Mocap (kinect, perception neuron, vive vr)

Full-time (Temporary/Contract)

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Lead Animator, Animation Director

AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

Tech doesn't support what we need, we have a very basic blending system, no motion matching and some strict rules apply to some animations because of this.

I feel that software/tools could be further ahead, there's some really cool things happening but there's either not enough money or tech jobs around to make it happen. We tend to stick to old tech because it's safer/what we know and it's always a risk to change and try new things which I think can hold animators back.

tech like RADiCAL / mocap in general being so good that we wont need as many animators (mainly on humanoid rigs).

How AI can help us have 1000s of animations and learn from what we give it. How we can bounce off of new tech to achieve greater things. Its scary and exciting at the same time, I don't know where it will go

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Lead, Director, Studio Manager/HR

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Lack of animators to discuss animation with and grow.

Rigging, Tools, Simulation, R&D, State machines, integration (gameplay+cinematics), automation pipelines, ragdolls, dynamics, shaders

Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

Either been too reliant on it, or not respecting it

In Studio, In Town (External Partner)

Cinematics, Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator

Getting animation tools/runtime support internally at the studio as opposed to only relying on the company's engine team

Using more tech and procedural solutions in order to cut down the amount of animation assets needed to reach quality

AAA, Engine/3rd Party Tools

Non-Binary, Trans

Working at Unity; we struggle most with good pipelines and workflows as well as tools that are easy to use and follow.

The rising cost of realistic animation; especially facial. The lack of furthering animation runtime technology (compared to other disciplines like lighting and rendering). Lack of real-time complex deformers. Lack of AI driven/neural networks in animation to lighten the content load.

Whether or not I implement anim stuff or the animator does really depends on the individual animator and their technical acumen. Some animators I work with can do it all, some can hit the Export button in Maya and that's it.

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

IO from outsourcing and getting clean animation exports. Every animator we work with is a different in how they deliver and it takes time to get them in the same page.

Motion capture. For those of us without the resources for it, mocap seems like a black box reserved for AAA studios.

It seems like we are finally getting to a place where procedural and emergent animations are viable. With thorough IK rigs and physics-based animation I think the scope of motion, variety, and form we can get will only improve.

Budget Mocap (kinect, perception neuron, vive vr)

Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

We don't have a Lead animator or any supervising animator role as I am the only Animator in the studio. My role doesn't have title other than Animator, this is through out the studio to any roles except for the founders who carried leadership roles.

Out dated animation system.

Understanding of how animation is being made.

Either being outsource to somewhere else or AI making animation based on a huge library of animations previously made by people.

I came from Mobile game industry where animators where not really anything, we often had massive amount of work and never being appreciated. There was a huge lack of understanding how animations are made and how long it takes. Going indie, I see a better appreciation of animation but there's still a lack of knowledge of how much effort and time it takes to create animation. The worst comment I experience from creative type of directors were" I took a class of animation in college, I know what I'm talking about." or : "I don't care how it's being done, just do your job." I think one should care and understand how something is being done.

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture, Video/Markerless Capture

In Studio, Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Lead Animation Programmer

Optical Motion Capture, Video/Markerless Capture

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Cinematics, Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Rigging and/or Skinning

Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Lead, Studio Manager/HR

Trying to get a good compromise between tech and animators to get as many tools/automation as we can to develop a huge game with a little anim team.

not balancing animation team's workload evenly (only one gameplay animator responsible for hundreds on animations vs 2 cinematic animators)

creative animation vs gameplay needs

Sharing with partner/family member

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Adding to Animation Lists/Sets, Intermediate Complexity Tasks (e.g. update/add to existing state graphs, blends spaces, additives/layers), Advanced Complexity Tasks (e.g. state graph architecture, visual scripting, procedural systems, ik, ragdolls)

Time required to cover animations and other areas programming.

Making it easy for none "technical" animators to work within the engine. I still feel it's too programmy/scripty and quite jarring coming from a creative experience (animating in 3ds max for example) to suddenly have to deal with getting the anim to work in game.

Also allowing animators to work remotely, whilst it's certainly better than it was even a few years ago, companies still want animators onsite.

Optical Motion Capture, Performance Capture

Hiring senior animators from film/VFX and expecting them to be senior gameplay animators without years of mentorship and training

Rising expectations and production costs in the AAA sector

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Cinematics, Lower tier skin support secondaries

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Outdated software and engines... (3ds max biped/ unreal 3)

Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Full-time (Temporary/Contract)

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

AAA, Indie, Online

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator, Technical Animation Director, Lead Animation Programmer

Budget Mocap (kinect, perception neuron, vive vr)

Lead, Director, Studio Manager/HR

Virtual betting/gambling games

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Size and location depends of project.

Understanding about how we do our job.

Abusing the fact that we love our job as an excuse for crunch.

All Animation 🔄 Game Engine related. I think that my knowledge at the moment is pretty much basic.

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Performance Capture, None

In Studio, Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), very repetitive stuff and large scale minor tweaks

animators and other artists seem to be losing there drive to go above and beyond.

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture

Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator

In Studio, In Town (External Partner)

Cinematics, Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Animation Programmer

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator, Technical Animation Director

Lead, Studio Manager/HR

Out of Town (External Partner) - Direct in person

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Proper content planning and scheduling

Sharing with partner/family member

I'm an full time Animator who is fluent in Tech Animation as well. So I do Other when it is needed. I feel that animators should be more technical these days in order to be more appealing to game studios.

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Our project is very tools heavy in the animation department. Which has held the project and pipeline back in some areas. If you update one tool, you have to update them all. Which takes time.

Sharing with partner/family member

We use an optitrack system.

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Moving to in house vs outsource and the hiring needed to complete that.

The sheer amount at quality needed to create a fluid and quality product.

A fixation on "realistic" or "high fidelity" motion

Automation, too many games are focusing on making "realistic" character motion. Some games need that kind of animation, but there are others that would greatly benefit from the exaggerated visuals of hand-keyed motion that still opt into using motion capture often for the entirety of their anim sets. Eventually, there won't be a need for teams of animators to clean up or even check motion capture data, technology will outmode this job by making it faster and cheaper. I'm fortunate enough to be working for a company that still values hand-keyed animation, but how long will my job continue to be regarded as worth the cost when a cheaper, faster and easier to implement alternative is made available?

I'm honestly not sure. Games are becoming less and less of a viable space for animators like me. I hope that an oversaturation of motion captured game animation and will revive interest in more exaggerated styles of animation. There are still plenty of games that emphasize a more artistic approach, I hope that begins to trend upward more as people's taste in video games continue to develop and diversify.

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture

In Studio, In Town (Internal Partner), Out of Town (Internal Partner) - Direct in person, Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Lead Animator, Animation Director

I have a complicated reporting structure as I’m the only person in my role at the studio. I don’t have a lead, I take direction directly from one of the directors. I have a producer that manages my schedule, and a manager that manages 1:1s and career development. Managers at our studio are discipline based: They’re people who have a background in the role you do, but are heavily focused on HR and people development type tasks.

Outdated animation tech, and animators not trained in technical implementation.

Technical implementation, scope, and at the moment; covid-19 affecting mocap shoots.

At my workplace most people with the "Technical Animator" title work in DCCs. Other than that everyone has the title of "Animator" even though there is a wide range in the type of work that they do. Some simply animate, while others are involved in the runtime tools.

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Out of Town (Internal Partner) - Direct in person

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Lead Animator, Animation Director

Animation memory consumption, being able to quickly acquire new assets.

The turnaround time to get new animations is too long. Conception -> Waiting for the next mocap shoot -> Cleaning Data -> Putting in game.

How much do other studios care about animation? How do you get your studio to care about animation.

Full-time (Temporary/Contract)

Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Serious games

Having poor tools to support animating and implementing into engine.

Sharing with partner/family member

Almost nobody makes it through the hiring process

Lack of understanding/interest in game design from animators

Realtime animation techniques to increase complexity of navigation and multi-character interaction (these are to me, the 2 clearly limiting factors in modern animation. I.E. ''He cant walk on that, he cant touch that'')

Design leadership at studios believing that polished animation=game design, a huge fundamental misuse of the power of animation, and a total failure to understand game design (e.g. press A to perform kill move, which has rotted the majority of AAA combat)

Sharing with partner/family member

I am actively pursuing Motion Matching for our next gen iteration. There's a large gap in tool development/knowledge base between traditional locomotion and motion matching. Also I feel that studios often invest in DCC tool development rather than engine-side because of the communication gulf between engineers and animators/tech-animators.

Previously captured motion library sets.

Out of Town (Internal Partner) - Direct in person

As we are pushing into mocap and specifically toward motion matching. We had 100% keyframe motion with a goal of realistic movement, so we began replacing motion selectively w mocap animation (externally and internally authored). It is difficult to access adequate motion sets. Luckily our current project leans toward human combat, so there are some relevant pieces available through rokoko libraries and other sets.

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), DCC Tools

Exporting from DCC, Adding to Animation Lists/Sets

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Adding dynamic and systemic character systems.
Animation compression to meet hardware specs when balanced against other systems.

Extending legacy AAA learning and tooling to lower tier studios.
Filling mid-tech engine animation positions.
Letting animators Scale any joint (Come on y'all, it's not THAT hard to accommodate, and it would free up animators a ton)
Low number of dedicated animation specific engineers.

The industry has been in good hands, but I think that we need to extend the circle intentionally through mentorship and letting go of power/authority.

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), Rigging and/or Skinning

Technical Animation Director

Narrative/Vision changes. This causes a lot of finished work to be nullified and adds more work to the scope.

We need a union to protect animators and artists from bad business practices.

Outsourcing animation is so much cheaper we will lose local animation positions, and not gain the creative energy animators bring to a team.

Cinematics, Rigging and/or Skinning

Lead Animator, Lead Technical Animator

Giving enough time for the amount of assets we have

Full-time (Temporary/Contract)

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets)

Not enough Junior roles. It's difficult to get experience when you require experience and it doesn't seem that Indie is considered experience for most places in my experience.

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko), Performance Capture

In Studio, Out of Town (Internal Partner) - Direct in person

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce)

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator, Technical Animation Director, Lead Animation Programmer

Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Sharing with partner/family member

Optical Motion Capture, Performance Capture

In Studio, In Town (Internal Partner)

secondary overrides for new skins

Old outdated programs (3ds max 2018/Biped, Unreal 3, same game infrastructure for 7 years)

I'm at a large studio with a 'small feature team' (10-15 people max) mindset around engineers. Animation is seen as a discipline, not a feature so they're also split up amongst teams. This seems to lead to lots of animators & engineers who are interested in X animation feature, or Y graphics feature, but aren't able to tie an animation or graphics ask to their respective small team in a meaningful way.

Optical Motion Capture, Inertial Motion Capture (e.g. xsens, rokoko)

Cinematics, Vanity Animations (e.g. Emotes, Dances, Fidgets), Rigging and/or Skinning

Checking into source control (e.g. Perforce), Exporting from DCC

The outsourcing studios we work with don't make it clear how big the team of people they have working on our project at any given moment is. Leads us to not trust the work as much as we don't know who the people are and what skillset they have, or if it's even the same people and they remember our notes from the process last time or they're just getting spun up on the project. We try to learn more about their team makeup, but it's not something they're comfortable with sharing.

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator

Feature addition to our engine and cross project animation tools support in the DCC

game animation runtime systems architecture. I think having a more solid understanding of how engines are built to handle animation would be great, and it'd be easier for me and others to make informed/relevant requests from engineers, or to know what's do-able in the moment vs. pie in the sky.

External provider (Daycare/Nanny/School)

Fully Remote - Direct Remotely

Player Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs), AI Gameplay Animations (e.g. attacks, locomotion, multi-character syncs)

Lead, Studio Manager/HR

Lead Animator, Animation Director, Lead Technical Animator

Animation implementation and engine tools support

As a technical animator, what systems others use for automated rigging would be really interesting.