Job Research

Today I have been looking at jobs openings relating to animation in the game industry, many of the job openings I have reviewed require a hefty amount of experience, some in a triple A industry and some just using the software for a certain number of years.

Take this job for example, they are asking for an animator, however that is not the only thing you need, you need to have the knowledge of the modelling software, and some knowledge of the other departments that will come together to form the game.

Another job that I viewed, this one is asking for an "animator" however what this animator needs to know is not just how to animate but how to use motion capture, how to rig, how to skin, etc, countless more skills that are needed than just animating.

Some job openings are even just for the model being rigged and not actually animated, reading these job openings has swayed my thinking in my dissertation a fair bit, before I really wanted to do animation, just animation. But looking at actual companies that are hiring today you need to be more than just a good animator, you need to be able to model, rig, texture, you need to know the ins and outs of every bit of the process leading up to actually animating the character.

With this said, I am thinking that for my dissertation, I still want to animate a character, but I feel I should make that character, texture and rig them inside a appropriate 3d modelling software (3ds max for example) and be marked more on the actual model and rig than the animation, for example. 70% model+rig 30% animation.

-J.W