Animation Nerds.

I've often joked that talking about art is like talking about sex. It's much more fun to just shut up and do it(yes, that is a dumb joke). This holds true for talking about animation as well (yet here I am doing it). While I only briefly attended CalArts it was clear to me that I was not surrounded by other animators, but by animation nerds.

When I was a student there was only one other classmate who was older than me. The rest of the class were relatively young, inexperienced, and somewhat naive kids who all shared a love of everything Disney and all things animation. They loved discussing their favorite animation scenes and moments. They were all there to learn anything they could about 2d animation. Having had some 2d experience and a 3d animation job for a few years already, I wasn't there to talk about animating; I was there to see what else I could learn about it.

Although I feel like my career choice has been validated many times over I am still not a great animator. I'm not the best artist or draftsman or story teller, either. Sometimes I hardly feel competent. Sometimes I wish I was just an idea guy. However, the one thing that I know for sure is that I am not an Animator's Animator. I am a Designer's Animator and more specifically, a Game Designer's Animator.

The first time I ever realized that instead of just watching animations I actually wanted to make them was while playing Earthworm Jim. The creativity in that game just blew my mind. There are so many simple, special moments in Jim's library of motion that I could hardly believe it but most of those ideas, and I'm not certain about this, seemed to stem from a design necessity. The sequel only further confirmed that I might be right. Practically every level has a new design mechanic with new, accompanying animations.

I wasn't amazed by the animation in EWJ, though it is great, but instead marveled at how it applied to Jim's purpose. I remember crossing and recrossing the gap where the suit first uses Jim's body as a whip to traverse it. The first time he literally pulls himself up by his bootstraps I was awestruck. It was so brilliant and so goofy. There was so much inventiveness, so much personality, and such a defined (if completely unbelievable) universe. I immediately thought, "This was an animator making a designer's needs happen."

I also thought, "I can do that."

I'd made flip-books before but now I was sketching out design ideas and posing out character movement with functionality in mind. I also staked out corners of book stores and coffee shops drawing people doing the boring and the mundane. What I realized was that each one of them always revealed something they probably didn't even know about themselves. Everyone has a unique library of movement. People exhibit Corporeal Narrative in everything they do and it's only in the understanding of that language that you break from the typical "squash and stretch" mentality and really get to know someone.

This rule has been no more realized than while walking around the studios I've worked at. The personality types that make up a game development studio are drastically varied, but no more apparent than while walking through the halls. The Artists (concept, character, level and animation) tend to move in meandering, dreamy fashion. They are spacey, somewhat unaware, and lost in their own worlds. They are the day-care moms in the parking lot. Programmers are unsure how to navigate and sometimes apologetic but always aimed towards a definitive goal, as if they are lost in deeper thought; As a result, they get out of your way immediately, almost as if they've found a work-around hack. Designers are more confident. They're more in tune with the nature of relationships and how it applies to functionality. They, generally speaking, are the folks who do not have to budge when it comes to crossing paths. They don't need to because they know that Player 1 and Player 2 are having to move through a space together cooperatively and adjust accordingly. I'm generalizing, of course, but personality types do play a large role in how we communicate.

Getting back to animators there are, specifically, the two types I mentioned: Designer's Animators and Animator's Animators. It's rare to find an animator who actually understands game design(everyone thinks they are a designer but, no, you are not). The nuts and bolts behind what a player is feeling and what they are seeing unfold on screen are what truly shapes player experience, and it's important to strike the balance between presentation and feel. Animators, like most artists, particularly care about how their individual work looks. They want every little subtlety to be apparent, every action to be fluid and smooth, every frame to shine. When it comes to character creation, however, it is always a collaborative effort and one where compromise is important.

Animators need to know their role. They're supposed to sell moments; Moments that are often defined by designers. Likewise, designers need to know if their moments can work through motion. Just because you can picture it in your head doesn't always mean it can work, or should even work, for that matter.

I have a feeling that most designers hate working with me at first. I push against any ideas that I feel can't work through motion. I've had to explain the "why" something can't physically happen to designers more times than I can count. Instead of just trying things out their way I work towards a compromise, and often a design solution is found through motion instead of driving it. The hard part about having a design that doesn't make sense via movement is that ultimately, I want to sell the concept. That's my job. If an idea requires movement that isn't possible it's not a solid idea and we need to work to find a solution together.

A lot of animators do exactly what they're told and, to be honest, most of them should. Many of them don't understand player experience and solely focus on how their animation looks when it's played by itself on their own monitor instead of how it plays out in the actual game and ultimately ignoring what the player is experiencing when that animation occurs. The difference between being a good Animator and being a good Game Animator is understanding design with regard to player experience. You don't have to master it but you should at least be familiar with what a designer requires and how to sell those ideas. Animators working in games don't need to stop being animation geeks but, eventually, they do need to become Designer's Animators.