The Importance of Motivation in Character Animation

Even animated characters need motivation. Our motion graphics and 3D animation expert explains why motivation is key to animating a great scene. Check it out!

Motivation is an often overlooked and underestimated factor of quality character animation. Successful animators require a special blend of right and left-brained thinking, as it requires a mix of both technical know-how as well as creative imagination. Along with the ability to create animation comes the responsibility to execute an animated performance in both a believable and engaging way.

Character Animators are often tasked with animating characters we know little about. Non-animators often assume that our technical ability and experience will result in a great animation, even if we are given little-to-no information about whom the characters we are animating are. This is where motivation becomes vital.

As an example, one of the first shots in ECG’s pilot episode of “Tsunami Tuna” has a the star duo of Tsunami (a giant mutant tuna) and RAD (an ex-military mechanized dolphin) chatting about their plans for the day while sharing a sea-weed joint.  With animation being the time-consuming beast that it is, many novice animators might find and/or make reference and jump in headfirst.  If you have the tools, why not?

Character Motivation in Animation: Tsunami Tuna

To answer that, let’s talk about a live-action film actor’s performance and what goes into his or her preparation.  An actor has to get into the head of the character they are portraying.  Here are some questions the actor might seek to answer about their role:  How old is my character?  What is my character’s mental/emotional state?  Is my character healthy?  The overarching question here is: What makes my character different?

In seeking the answer to this question all sorts of realizations fall onto the actor.  If the character is ex-military, then maybe they suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, as RAD does.  If the character is a freak due to a man-made nuclear accident, then perhaps he has a bit of a vendetta on humans.  How would these two characters act if they were to form a friendship?  How would they differ?

Character Motivation in Animated Series: Tsunami Tuna

In many situations, a lot of these answers will often have been addressed by the writers in the script or sometimes just mentally.  One way to gain access to all this information is simply to write out a list and email it to the writer and/or director of animation to tap into their viewpoints.  All of this will be helpful, but in vast majority of cases you will still need to make your own decisions about what the character would act like in a given situation.  Don’t limit yourself to long-term motivations either, if RAD or Tsunami just took puffs of a joint, they might act differently then they would preparing for battle.

Obviously, these questions are just the tip of the iceberg, but you shouldn’t be so overwhelmed by these thoughts that you are unable to animate at all.  That said, neither should you blindly approach an animation without considering motivation any more than an actor should arrive on-set ignorant of his character’s role.  If you can tap into the right balance of considering motivation before and during the animation process, you’ll find that your character’s performances exude a cohesive quality absent in those of animators who do not.

One Response

  1. Your Blog is very useful for us. Animation courses extend to your worthwhile employment opportunities and fantastic profession development and advancement. Realistic designing and animation are the two most picked and favored courses by the PC savvies and even by experts. Understudies students should join animation institute for the following zones; Website architecture, Storyboards, Building Structure, Advanced Video, Video generation, 2d and 3d Animation, Advanced Photography.

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