The production pipeline of video game animations

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to give a brief summary of animation production pipelines in video game production workflows. It progresses by briefly going through all the steps required in producing an animation and clarifying their value. At the beginning, there is a detailed explanation about the functions of the team members who have influenced the creation of animations. It is followed by an explanation of the individual steps which have to be made in order to complete a functioning animation.

The included information is partly based on personal experience from animation projects completed in professional environments. This experience has highlighted how standard-ized the practices of the industry are across multiple professional animation houses. The experience of working with several different developers has made it apparent that despite aesthetic and internal company-specific differences there are similarities in team dynamics and approaches. The approach used in this thesis was to find the similarities and describe their connection to one another.

It is common especially amongst beginners in the industry to be misinformed or under experienced in the ways how company dynamics and communication work. The intent of this thesis is to provide an easy to follow walkthrough for an aspiring animator.