The animation team at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward decided against motion-capturing weapons for use with in-game animations.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare animation director Mark Grigsby revealed that Infinity Ward’s animators actually went in and animated all the weapon animations in the game, such as reloads, by hand.

Grigsby told Game Informer the team adopted a “purest” approach to the process, forgoing the now more common motion capture process in favour of hand key animation.

As for the team’s goal with reload animations in Modern Warfare, Grigsby noted they needed to represent the Tier 1 experience of handling these weapons, i.e., animations have to be performed with confidence and heft. That said, the developer slightly exaggerated some of them for a bit flair, bu they remain rooted in reality.

The veteran animator also touched on one of Modern Warfare’s features: the ability to reload without leaving ADS, something he was surprised nobody tried to do before.

In the Game Informer’s video below, Grigsby walks us through two reload animations and discusses some of the considerations that go into creating them, especially when it comes to the time of each reload and how that affects game pace. It’s a brief, but nonetheless interesting look at how something so small takes a lot of work.





Posted: Aug 26, 2019 5:26 pm
Related Forum: Call of Duty Forum

Source: https://www.vg247.com/2019/08/26/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-animations-made-by-hand/