3D Animation Services

Expressive Character Animation for Games & Film

From nuanced facial keyframing to dynamic combat cycles. We bring characters to life with industry-standard rigging and animation workflows.

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The "Full Pipeline" Approach

We don't just move vertices; we ensure your characters have weight, personality, and technical stability within the game engine.

Phase 1: Character rig controls

1. Rigging & Skinning

Creating robust skeletal hierarchies, IK/FK switches, and precise skin weight painting for natural deformations.

Phase 2: Character animation blocking poses

2. Blocking Pass

Establishing the core poses, timing, and silhouettes before committing to spline interpolation.

Phase 3: Polished running animation

3. Splining & Polish

Smoothing arcs, adding follow-through, secondary motion, and micro-expressions.

Phase 4: Character animation in a game environment

4. Engine Integration

Exporting animation curves and setting up Animation Blueprints or State Machines in-engine.

Technical Breakdown

Optimization Challenge: Game animations must be punchy, responsive, and blend seamlessly. We ensure all animations return smoothly to root poses, bake out complex rig constraints, and utilize root motion perfectly so characters navigate the game world without foot sliding.

Technical Specs & Software Stack

Industry-Standard Tooling

Built on the backbone of AAA animation pipelines.

  • Rigging & Animation: Autodesk Maya
  • MoCap Cleanup: MotionBuilder
  • Facial Animation: Faceware, ARKit, Maya
  • Engine Implementation: Unreal Engine, Unity

Technical Deliverables

Ready for your technical animators.

  • Custom Maya control rigs (.ma)
  • Clean, baked animation clips (.fbx)
  • In-engine Animation Blueprints (Unreal)
  • Root motion and in-place variations

How We Collaborate

A transparent, predictable process operating under strict NDAs and secure data environments.

1. Briefing & Reference

Reviewing gameplay mechanics, state machines, and reference video to understand the character's personality.

2. Rigging Approval

We build and test the rig. You review the control limits and skin weights before animation begins.

3. Blocking (Milestone 1)

Stepped keyframes to review timing, extreme poses, and readability of the action.

4. Splining (Milestone 2)

Converting to smooth curves and ensuring weight and momentum feel correct.

5. Polish & Feedback Loop

Final tweaks to overlapping action, facial expressions, and finger poses based on your feedback.

6. Export & Engine Delivery

Baking the animations to the skeleton and verifying they play flawlessly in the game engine.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you animate using our custom proprietary rig?

Yes. Our animators are highly adaptable. If you provide your Maya rig and technical guidelines, we can seamlessly integrate into your existing workflow without modifying your underlying skeleton.

Do you do keyframe animation or mocap cleanup?

Both. We excel at highly stylized, hand-keyed animation (e.g., for stylized platformers or fighting games), and we also offer rapid motion capture cleanup and retargeting for photorealistic projects.

How do you handle complex facial animation?

For high-fidelity characters, we utilize blendshape-based facial rigs (FACS) or joint-based facial rigs depending on engine requirements. We can keyframe lip-sync manually or drive it using facial mocap data.